#maybe I should just get an aloe plant and rub it on my face instead

[sorrowfulwill]

chilly face…face mask made me chilly…..chilly

[blue-slush-writing]

𝐁𝐞𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐮𝐥 𝐂𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐫𝐲 𝐁𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐬𝐦𝐬

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 1

𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 5.2k

𝐒𝐡𝐢𝐩: 𝐁𝐚𝐤𝐮𝐠𝐨𝐮 𝐱 𝐈𝐳𝐮𝐤𝐮

𝐏𝐨𝐯: Izuku has finally been able to get out of an abusive relationship with Todoroki but can't seem to full escape, especially when all of their friends are trying to force them back together

Katsuki thought his life was perfect, but as soon as his daughter was unexpectedly born his girlfriend left, leaving him to be a father on his own. He's trying to make it through college while taking care of his 3 year old.

𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐬: 𝐨𝐧𝐠𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐠

Chapter 2

Izuku could roughly hear his alarm going off next to his bed and he could feel the sun's light shining in through his window. The bright rays were piercing through his tightly shut eyes, and he groaned, squinting. It was a Tuesday morning and he had class in about an hour, but despite the continuous beeping, he only rolled over, prepared to go back to sleep and skip class. His comforter was practically begging him to just stay in today. Along with his awful headache, it seemed like reason enough to ditch for one day. Part of him wanted an aspirin, but sleep felt more important. He shifted uncomfortably as his bare skin rubbed against the sheets. Somewhere in his mind he was vaguely aware he was naked, but the situation didn’t quite click into place until he felt an extra pair of arms wrap around his from behind. The warmth of another person pressed up against his back, and he rolled over, coming face to face with a smiling duel haired man. his eyes opened in surprise, and he began to speak, only to find the words caught in his throat.

“Morning sunshine.” The boy muttered, trying to lean in for a kiss, but was instead met with Izuku’s hand pressed tightly between their lips. Even this early in the morning Shoto still looked stunning, but that wasn’t quite what was on his mind.

“Did we… again?” When he had invited Shoto over, he had sworn to himself wouldn’t get high enough to sleep with him, but it seemed his self control was more of a figment of his imagination. It hadn’t been too long since the two of them broke up, but it felt way too soon to be considering getting back with his Ex.

In response to his question Shoto only laughed. “You really can’t hold your liquor Izu.”

“We were drinking?!” The man was a known lightweight, which was why he rarely drank, especially in combination with weed. For the life of him he couldn’t piece together what happened last night, but here he was, for the second time that month, laying naked in bed with a guy he had sworn not to see again. Maybe he had slipped something into his drink. Izuku tried to move out of Shoto’s arms and sit up, but was immediately pulled back down into a tight hug.

“Come on. Don’t be like that. You were so nice to me last night” He planted small kisses along his collar bone.

“I was nice because you got me drinking until I forgot what a dick you are.” He snarled, pushing him off. Izuku rolled out of bed, dragging one of the blankets with his as a robe. Their clothes were scattered across the room, and no matter where he looked he couldn’t seem to find his boxers.

“They’re s on the couch.” Shoto turned over on the bed, Obviously not planning on leaving his apartment anytime soon. What worried Izuku more is that he was probably going to have to wash the entire living room. With his luck they probably hadn’t gone for only one round. He grabbed a pair of booty shorts out of his dresser and pulled them on, throwing a thin white T over top. It was way too early for this shit. His head was pounding and everything felt very bright and harsh. Just how much did he drink? He was trying to act nonchalant, but he had a really bad feeling in his gut. Even if he hadn’t been in his right mind, he felt like he was leading Shoto on. Izuku knew he didn’t plan on getting back together with him, so doing this made him feel dirty. He never used to do one night stands, but the more time he spent around friends, the more time he woke up in situations like this. his friends were his Ex’s friends which meant they were all trying to push the two of them back together. Even now, he was sure that they had all purposefully ditched the party last night just to give them some time together. Those bastards.

Still feeling incredibly tired, he walked drearily into the kitchen, bumping into the counter on his way to the coffee pot. With a hangover like this he was going to start with a minimum of three mugs and an aspirin. He popped the last instant brew cup into its place and added water before pressing start. He could have just stood there and watched, but he felt the overwhelming need to brush his teeth, so he made his way down the hall to the bathroom, and was met with a very unseemly sight. He looked like a total wreck. His makeup from the day before streaked down his face and his green dyed hair was an absolute mess. He looked like he had just walked out of hell.

He splashed some water onto his hands and slowly massaged a puff of soap into his dry face. It stung his eyes, but he rubbed his skin clean till he was satisfied, and rinsed, wetting his hair in the process. He was in desperate need of a shower anyway , but that would have to wait until after he got an explanation. He felt like his heart was racing faster than it should, and he could see his hands shaking as he opened the cap to the tooth paste. Maybe it was the drugs still working their way out of his system, but he got the feeling he was afraid of the things he might have said the night before. The promises he might have made. Hell, with the way he acted when he was drunk he might walk out this just to be told they were already back together. Part of him longed for that. Wanted to be held again and shown affection. Wanted to taste Shoto on his lips when they-

But the other half of him knew that was impossible. He had already had his heart broken once, and he didn’t know if he had it in his to go through that again. Shoto was the one who had got him started on pot in the first place when they were back in high school. Izuku was stressed and anxious, and had been easily convinced it was just a way to “chill out”. His relationship quickly went from best friend, to dealer and customer, and when he didn’t have the money for weed, he would pay with... favors. This continued into college, but soon he was able to make other friends who hooked him up and he became a resident stoner. Weekends, parties, and now apparently Monday nights, he would get togethers to get lit. Everyone seemed to like him and he got invited out a lot. He was just a typical college kid with some extra problems.

Somewhere along the way his favors for Shoto got more and more serious, until he just asked him out. Izuku had probably mistaken what they had for love and immediately said yes. They would fight, make up, have sex, and pretend like none of it happened. Maybe he could have realized earlier that something was off, but the blonde just had a way of doing things that always brought him back. Like after a long day of work he would sneak the two of them onto their apartment buildings roof, and they would spend the night in each other's arms, just watching the stars and talking about nothing. When they did finally break up it was because Shoto had cheated. Behind Izuku’s back there had been a girl named Momo who seemed to be nothing more than eye candy, but had taken up his time nonetheless. When he found out what was going on he had been devastated. After a long fight that lasted days of on and off screaming, they decided it would be best to just part ways. To Izuku it had been the end, but Shoto seemed to think they were just on some kind of break.

Swishing water around in his mouth, the greenette spit out the last of the minty paste and left from the bathroom. He could hear his Ex getting dressed in the bedroom as well as the beep of the coffee machine, signalling that the pot was done brewing.

Once he had poured himself a mug, he couldn’t be bothered to add creamer and just decided to drink it black. he didn’t have the patience to search all around his kitchen for whatever ridiculous spot his friends had left his milk and sweeteners. He had only just taken a sip of his steaming drink when Shoto walked in wearing one of Izuku’s hoodies, and prosmuidly nothing underneath. He slowly tried to approach him, but every step forward warranted two steps back.

“Are you serious Izuku? We’re not five. You can’t just back away from your problems.” He moved closer. “We still have something. We always did. I already apologized didn’t I?” His voice almost sounded sincere, but there was a layer of malice dripping behind every word. This was one of his tactics. Say sweet words laced with just enough poison to scare his into submission. But he had grown too much since their breakup to fall prey to his lies once again. He never wanted to go back to being Shoto’s plaything.

“You cheated on me with some bitch you met on tinder. You lost me the day you started sleeping around behind my back.” He knew he must have a dark glare on his face, and he hoped it got his point across. He wanted him out immediately. “I’ll show you to the door .” He tried his best to sound warm, but it was clear that he was about ready to lose it. He wasn't sure why he was so angry, but a swarm of memories was clouding his mind and he felt as though he was on the verge of tears. If Shoto stayed any longer he might collapse and give in again.

“Can I at least take a shower before I leave?” It was so clear this was not a question but a demand, but Izuku was not having it. With no words left to say, he simply grabbed a jacket from the front closet, shoved it at Shoto and pushed him out the front door. He honestly couldn’t care if it was winter, and that he was wearing barely anything, but his new house was close enough for him to not have to worry. And Even if it wasn’t, why should he care? The man was no longer his problem.

Once he was alone in his apartment he immediately collapsed down onto his bed, wondering why he had let this happen to himself. His first class started in close to 30 minutes, but he definitely did not feel like going. He would write his professor an email saying he got sick and hope that he didn’t think his getting sick for the 13th time that semester was strange. He probably hated him, but it was just a general language class. He had dropped English in high school and now had to retake it at 9:30 in the morning every Tuesday and Thursday.

Despite having taken a bath the night before, Izuku felt filthy. His skin was crawling and he wished he could run away any memories that might resurface the night before. Before he tried to figure out anything for the day a shower was in order. He once again pulled himself from bed and picked up his phone from the nightstand. He had been in such a daze last night that he hadn’t even plugged his phone in and it was now at a dwindling 13%. he connected it to his charger, not even bothering to look at his string of notifications. Who ever needed his could wait until after he was clean.

He had just put his clothes on, but easily dropped them to the floor and carefully made his way to the shower. There were red solo cups littered around his living room, and the whole place wreaked of drugs and sex. This is why he never let people party at his house. He was surprised to not find puke in the bathroom, but at least that would be one less thing for him to clean up. He clicked the water on and stepped into its spray, not waiting for it to warm up. It felt so good to have the cold droplets covering his back and dripping through his hair.

As the water heated up he felt like his problems melted away. Thoughts of past love, lust and affection, the after taste of drugs. They slipped down the drain with all of the sweat from the night before. When his and Shoto had broken up he had replaced all of his soaps so that the house would stop smelling like him. So he would stop smelling like him. Now all of his senses were filled with the smell of white chocolate and strawberries. It was the same body wash that he had used in middle school before all of his problems had come barreling head first into his life. It reminded him of his mother, Inko. The soap had originally been hers, But Izuku had stolen it and didn’t change the scent he used for years. He had only switched it in highschool when his friends told him that he should switch to a brand that was better for the environment.

As he stood in the shower, he could feel his legs lightly quivering and he had to steady himself against the shower bar. It hadn’t been immediate, but the effects of an eventful night were finally hitting him. He relentlessly scrubbed hisself, wishing he could magically erase himself from existence. The worst part of all of this was he already didn’t want to be sober anymore. He had made a catastrophic mistake under the influence, but he knew he could forget if he just let himself go a little. Being addicted to something was incredibly annoying. As long as he could guarantee Shoto wouldn’t be there, he would probably call up his friends and ask them to come over later that night.

When he washed his hair, streaks of green hair dye bled down his arms and torso, drizzling down the drain like a sad stream of sludge. The bright color was fading and it was close to time to redye it. Those were a multitude of colors he could go for, but he always found himself dying it green to match his eyes. At the very least he was on brand.

With the last bits of soap leaving his body, he cut off the water and stepped out of the shower. Water dripped off of his onto the floor mat and he rang his hair out with a towel, not letting the moisture cling to his roots. The entire room was filled with steam and he couldn’t see himself in the mirror, but it was safe to say he felt vastly better. Whatever had happened was in the past and all he could do now was move on with his day. Maybe he could call up his friend Uraraka and they could watch movies instead of doing their work on campus. She was kind of an idiot, but She always managed to make him feel better.

Izuku wrapped the towel around himself and opened the bathroom door, letting out a ploom of smoke. The rest of his apartment was cold and he instantly regretted leaving the warm confines of the shower. He quickly ran to his bedroom and found a comfortable sweater and a pair of sweatpants. The two clothing items didn’t match at all, but who was going to see him? He might as well have put on some fuzzy socks too. Once he was bundled in warm clothing he reached for his phone and began to scroll through his alerts.

Those were tons of messages from his friends apologizing and checking in on him, an email from his boss, even a message from one of his close classmates asking if he was coming in today. He checked the email first, worried he might have forgotten about a shift. He worked at a fast food chicken hut, and he had thought he didn't have work until tomorrow, but with the way his day was going he was better safe than sorry. He skimmed it quickly, only noticing the key details. To his relief it was just notifying him of what hours he would be working so he wouldn’t be late...again. His boss liked him because he did his work while on shift, but he wasn’t the most reliable when it came to actually showing up on time. He usually did the four to nine shift but tomorrow he was working overnight.

His last notification was from Uraraka . She used a long string of emojis to accompany a message apologizing for leaving him alone last night. She seemed genuinely upset and said that Iida had dragged her out before she had even realized what was happening. Both Uraraka and Iida were Graphic design majors and lived together on campus. There was a good chance the two of them were dating, but Izuku never pressed the subject. He decided he might as well message her just to see if she wanted to come over. She most likely wouldn’t respond, but it was worth a shot. His fingers flicked across his keyboard and he sent him a simple text that got his point across.

‘Come over. I’ll get snacks and a movie. Just bring something… strong. Makeup for leaving me alone last night by giving me something to forget about Shoto.’ he knew he would regret saying this even as he typed the words, but he longed for an escape. Not only just from his Ex, but more from his situation. Somewhere deep within himself, Izuku felt like he was missing something. Like he didn’t belong. It was as if he was yearning for a place he had never been, whose he would finally feel whole. That “place” certainly wasn’t his one bedroom apartment.

Izuku decided it was worthwhile to put some concealer on, so as not to look like a total wreck for his friends. He didn’t care much about his appearance, but at the very least he wanted to cover up the redness of his tired eyes. His head still throbed from the past nights drinking, and every time he would turn his head too fast clusters of black dots would cloud his vision. Sighing heavily, he let himself fall back against his pillow, deciding he would just take a short nap until someone responded. He had no idea how late he had been up yesterday, but he could feel his fatigue dripping from him. Not even bothering to cover himself with the comforter, he rolled over, burying his face into the warmth of his cotton heat.

~~~

A ding on Izuku’s phone stared him from his sleep. He had his ringer all the way up, and the loud beep echoed through his room. Groaning, he turned over grabbing his phone from his night stand. It was later in the evening now, nearly Five o’clock, and the sun was no longer at its peak in the sky. Among other notifications, he had a message from Uraraka.

‘I’m in class, but I’ll be over in a bit. I get out at 4 so close to then.’

Four? It was an hour past then. Izuku sat up in bed, worried that he had missed her. He would feel so stupid if she had actually shown up only for his to fall asleep. Just as he began to worry, he heard quiet talking coming from the living room. He couldn’t quite make out what was being said, but it sounded like the TV was playing, as well as small laughs that bounced around the apartment. He sat up, clutching his head and stumbled out of his bedroom. Sitting thoughtlessly on his couch was Uraraka, watching his TV as if it was her own house. She had her feet kicked up on his coffee table and her school bag was sitting next to her. She had clearly come straight from class. He certainly hadn’t been quiet when he barged into the room, and she looked up from where she was sitting and looked at him as if he was the one who seemed out of place. She had a smug grin, and he was sure he must look ridiculous from sleeping on his face.

“The front door was open so I invited myself in.” She said nonchalantly, leaning her head backwards on the couch to stare at him. He definitely should have warned her-

“I wouldn't sit thise if I was you. Pretty sure I had sex there last night.” He said, sighing. Normally it would have been funny to see the look of utter disgust on Uraraka's face, but he was still feeling guilty about what happened. The brunette quickly leapt up from the couch, shaking herself off as if he had gotten an STD just from sitting there. He looked at her with regret at having spent the last hour laying down on the sofa. As bad as his mood was, it did brighten him a little bit to see the idiot running around trying to whip the cooties off of herself. Slowly his frown turned up and he began to laugh, walking forward and throwing a clean blanket over the cushions and taking a seat himself. “Honestly I don’t really remember what happened last night, but Shoto did say some cryptic things about the living room.” He said, giggling at Uraraka’s reaction.

After a few more minutes of flailing and laughing, she finally sat down, smiling brightly. She was glad to see that he wasn’t an absolute wreck. When Izuku did things he regretted, he tended to be a mess for days. She had been especially worried today when he asked for hard drugs. He rarely did anything more than pot, so he knew he must be really upset.

“You promised snacks, but I have yet to see any food.” She commented, gesturing dramatically around the room that was still covered in trash. Izuku wished he had had the chance to clean before she had come over, but to be fair, he wasn’t even awake by the time she arrived.

“I swear you only ever come over for my food.” he muttered, standing back up and walking over to the cupboards. He almost expected them to be completely empty, but to his surprise those were still a few bags of chips amongst the others food. Maybe his friends had just missed them the night they were over, or maybe this was their way of apologizing for leaving him with Shoto. Either way at least this was food left to offer in return for whatever Uraraka had brought over. He grabbed some ruffles and what was left of the takis and threw them down in front of Uraraka. “This is the best I can offer, so eat up.” He slumped down next to her and sighed. He already felt better being in the company of one of his friends.

Uraraka immediately opened up the bag and began to scarff down the food as if it was the last meal she would ever eat. If she kept up like that she would probably end up puking on him. While she made quick work of the chips, he snatched his backpack and began to dig around, looking for whatever he could to calm his racing mind. Being in Uraraka’s presence was nice, but he needed something a little… stronger. Her mess of a bag had crumbled up papers, day old food wrappers and a variety of notebooks. Her computer was the one clean looking thing in the whole black hole, and he definitely didn't see any drugs. She had flaked out on him. Shit. He dropped it to the floor and let his head fall back, looking straight at the ceiling. It was stupid feeling so dissapointed over something like this. Asking his friends for drugs definitely wasn’t a healthy way to cope with whatever this was, but at some point in his life it was like he had just given up. Given up on being a good son, on his school work, on making something out of his life.

When he was a kid his mother would tell his that he was his brightest star and that he just needed to find his home. He thought he had found it with his Ex, but all he had come out with was addiction and depression. He had become so codependent with him, that the last couple months alone had felt like hell. Everyday he almost gave in and unblocked his number, just wanting to be able to have someone to lean back on, but his mothiss words stuck with him. As much as his kind touches and loving whisper would sing him into his sweet fantasies, it was hard to look past all of the time he would get mad or violent. He was so good with his words, and he used them as a weapon, bleeding Izuku of his indiscretions. It was hard to win a battle against someone who knew your everything. Shoto was his weakness and it was easy to exploit that.

Truth be told he would kill to just be able to sit down and talk to his mother, but he hadn’t seen her in person in over two years. It wasn’t that they hadn’t been close, but when he moved out his mother had moved to Europe. She never came back to visit, and Izuku never asked. If he called her right now and really wanted her to come home, he knew she would catch the first flight back, but he never said anything. Inko had had Izuku when she was only 19 and he had always felt guilty for taking away the prime of her life. His mother never showed it, but he had the feeling that she was missing something. This was always this longing look on her face, especially after his father died.

He barely remembered his dad, but everyone who knew him talked fondly of him. Inko always said that they were deeply in love and that she wouldn’t give up the time they had for the world. After he had passed away he said she felt very distant living at home. That’s why after Izuku had moved out for college she had gone to England.

He only realized he had been spacing out when he looked up to see Uraraka pulling a small gum tin from her pocket. “You looked so zoned out just now I thought you might already be buzzed” She said jokingly, sliding the lid off the container. Inside was a small pile of white paper strips with hearts on them. That was definitely stronger than weed.

He had only taken LSD once before and had a rough trip that felt like it lasted forever. his friends assured him it was only around seven hours, but it had felt like days. He had almost walked into a busy street towards the end of it, and hadn’t really tried it since. He wasn’t sure if he really felt like doing this, but at this point he felt bad refusing Uraraka when she had come all this way for him, not to mention she was giving it to him for free. Maybe it was out of obligation or self pity, but he opened his lips, sticking out his tongue and placed a tab in his mouth. It tasted like nothing and disintegrated instantly, leaving him waiting patiently for it to kick in.

He looked over at Uraraka who sighed and smiled at him. “It’s probably going to take at least 30 minutes to kick in. We should probably just settle in with a movie.” Without waiting for confirmation he grabbed a remote off the table and clicked on the tv. After a bit of scrolling through netflix they settled on the ring, a safe choice.

G

Izuku had settled into the couch and was deep into the movie when he thought he heard someone whispering behind his back. It almost sounded like the wind whistling in his head and it made his skin tingle. He ignored it at first, playing it off as his imagination but the words seemed to come closer, until they were right in his ear, mumbling nonsense he couldn’t make out. He whipped his head around, looking for the source, but was only meant with the empty apartment. He looked over to Uraraka to see if she was experiencing the same thing, but for some reason only half of her was sitting on the couch. From her waist down was right where she was supposed to be but the rest of her was nowhere in sight. This should have been alarming, but instead he found himself giggling, covering his mouth with his hand so Uraraka’s legs wouldn’t get mad at him. The closer he looked the funnier it became to him, and soon he was breaking out into a fit of laughter.

As he laughed he could see the sounds tumbling out of his mouth in bright colors that painted the whole room into a rainbow. All of the hues seemed to seep together into a psychedelic collage. He slowly stood, trying to gasp them between his fingers, only to stumble over, nearly face planting into the beer stained carpet. As he stared at it the ground seemed to boil and pop beneath his. He felt a pair of arms wrapped around his hoisting his back to his feet. He turned his head, to come face to face with Uraraka, who was back to being a whole person.

“I found the rest of you!” he said with triumph, a bubbly laugh erupting from his. Izuku could see her lips moving, but couldn’t hear any of the words she was saying as she slowly set him back down on the couch. He was about to protest and stand again, when small black dots began to spot his vision. He blinked a few times, trying to get them to disappear, but they only seemed to grow, slowly clouding his vision.

He looked around for Uraraka, wanting to ask for help, but she was nowhere in sight. He began to shake his head violently, not understanding what was happening, but everything kept getting darker and darker. He was vaguely aware he was screaming, but he couldn’t seem to hear the sound. His throat began to get soar and he felt like he couldn’t breath. He began to take deep gulps of air, but it only made him more dizzy. Just as the last of his sight blacked out, he felt himself falling backwards, losing his strain of consciousness and collapsing into sleep

[fizzingwizard]

The In Between Times

AO3 link, because why not

So, current events in the Digimon reboot, the kids have 72 hours to fix the power outage in Tokyo before it's a total blackout. Until episode 16, there was a time lag as well, meaning time in the digital world ran faster than in the human world.

But the show is a fast-paced shonen anime so it’s all about action!! and not so much the little moments of downtime and camp-out camaraderie that let us really feel as if time is passing. I miss that.

SO! Since I can't get a job on the writing staff... here’s a fic about What The Kids Did At Night. Didn't think I'd write a fic for this series this early on but the muse does what she will!

Last note: I have no idea how large the time lag is, so I’m just putting in a “night” wherever I feel like one is needed. Three days RL = maybe six in the digital world. Mainly because that’s how many nights I feel like writing about.

- o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - The First Night

Taichi wasn't paying attention to the time until Sora stopped, a hand shading her eyes as she peered at the treetops.

"The sun's getting low," she said.

"I can't see very well," Mimi added, rubbing her arms. It wasn't particularly cold, but Taichi didn't say anything about it.

Instead he looked down at his feet, where his shadow had grown long, getting lost in the tangle of undergrowth on the forest floor. All the ferns and bushes were tinted a reddish-gold. High above, stars studded the purpling sky.

"Should we... find somewhere to sleep?" Sora asked after a beat, something leading in her tone of voice.

He very slowly realized they were waiting for him to say something.

"Uh... sure," he said. "I mean, it's not that dark yet, we could maybe walk another hour or so."

Mimi looked crestfallen. Oh - she had been hoping he'd agree. "My feet hurt!" she whined.

"We could keep going," Sora said. "But don't you think if we wait to stop till it gets darker, it might be hard to see what we're doing? We need to eat, make a fire..."

"I can take care of the fire," Agumon piped in.

"Yeah, fire's no problem for us." Taichi patted the top of his partner's head. Agumon's chest swelled. "So we'll have light, don't worry about that."

Sora still looked uncertain. "I just... would feel better if we didn't push it," she said at last, brow knit. Next to her, Mimi's hands were clasped together, as if in prayer.

This was getting ridiculous.

Taichi shrugged. "Okay, fine with me. Let's stop for now."

Immediately the two girls perked up. "Alright!" Mimi threw her arms in the air.

"We'll be sleeping on the ground outside though," Taichi warned her, expecting her to complain a little. At home Mimi probably slept on two mattresses covered in fluffy blankets, ensconced in plentiful pillows, with a host of stuffed animal attendants. And all of it would be pink.

But she waved away his concern. "Oh, I slept on the ground in the palace Palmon and the Tanemon built for me anyway," she said. Ah... he'd forgotten she'd been here longer than him. (Also, that place counted as a "palace"?) "If you can stack enough of those big leaves and fronds it's pretty comfortable."

"W-Well... cool." He glanced at Sora, but she had already knelt to the ground and was going through her bag of supplies. So apparently they were going to camp right here, then. "Uh, then I'll leave it to you to find the best leaves to sleep on. And Sora, you guys can get started on food?"

Sora nodded without looking up. She'd pulled out a couple bottles of water and some plastic utensils. Piyomon appeared to be trying to carry an entire picnic blanket herself. Taichi thought about mentioning to Sora that she was chewing her lip, like she often did when she was thinking. It was a habit he knew she was trying to kick. Something stopped him though.

Then Agumon plucked his sleeve. "What about me?"

"Warm up your muscles," Taichi grinned down at him. "We're gonna do some heavy labor."

He'd only seen it in pictures in his Scout's Companion Guide to the Wilderness, but a makeshift lean-to didn't seem particularly difficult to figure out. At least, not with a Digimon companion to do most of the work. Taichi helped where he could, dragging logs Agumon found or felled back to their campsite, patting down the foliage until it somewhat resembled a floor. They had some trouble tying the branches off until Mimi and Palmon came back and Palmon's vines made short work of wrapping the rope around the trees. Then it was just a matter of lining the logs up diagonal to the frame they'd made and packing them with leaves. The end result, well, it wasn't very pretty. But it didn't have to be. It just had to work.

"Wow, that looks great, Taichi-san!" Mimi exclaimed, jumping up and down.

Sora hummed in agreement. "It'll be good to have if it rains."

Taichi laughed and decided not to point out it would be totally useless if it rained. They'd be lucky not to get covered in mud if a strong gust of wind knocked it over on them. But the girls were already moving the leaf beds and picnic blanket under the lean-to. Whatever. At least they were happy.

It was dark without question by now, and Taichi felt exhaustion wash over him. Building that contraption had taken more time than he'd thought. Belatedly he realized the others were gathering for the dinner Sora had prepared, probably a while ago. He dragged his tired legs toward the fire Agumon had made and dropped down in front of it like a rock.

Dinner was slices of fruit from the Tanemon village Mimi had in her bag, along with sides of biscuits and wakame rice from Sora's emergency supplies. The biscuits were hard and chalky and the rice watery, but they were all so hungry no one much cared. And the fruit was delicious. The taste was similar to honeydew melon but with a texture like cream cheese. It'd be perfect in a cake, Mimi declared.

After eating they cleaned up, and since everyone was having trouble keeping their eyes open, they wound up going straight to bed. Taichi crawled under the lean-to and kicked off his shoes and socks. Next to him, Sora and Mimi were doing the same.

"I hate sleeping in my clothes," Mimi sighed, picking at her feet. "I wish you had spare pajamas, Sora-san."

"Spare pajamas weren't on the list of emergency supplies," Sora murmured. "But I do want a bath."

A groan. "My feet look like a man's!"

"Aw. Those blisters look painful. You need better hiking shoes."

"Well, it's not like I knew I'd be hiking all over! I wish you could find a plant that makes good skin lotion, Palmon. Like aloe vera."

"What's skin lotion?"

"Hold on, Mimi-chan, I'll get you a bandage."

Taichi listened to the girls' chit-chat lying on his side, facing away. Tired though he was, his mind wouldn't stop whirring. He didn't even know what to think of first. Getting across the ocean. Stopping the blackout. Getting home...

He felt something poke the small of his back. Then Agumon's nostrils sent a puff of warm air over his skin as his partner snuggled up to him.

"Taichi..." Agumon gave a huge yawn. "I'm sleepy."

"Your breath stinks." Reaching around, Taichi pulled Agumon in, and it was better than having an electric blanket. Funny, Agumon looked like some type of cold-blooded lizard, but he gave off heat like a furnace. Agumon's eyes closed. Taichi let his fingers trace feather-light along Agumon's snout, up and over the bridge of his nose. Agumon didn't seem to mind. He was already deep in sleep.

Taichi wasn't even sure how soon he wanted to go home.

---

"Taichi."

Someone was shaking him awake. "Whuh?"

"Your digivice. I think Koushirou-kun's calling you." Taichi blinked bleary eyes until he could make out Sora leaning over him. Her tousled hair was full of sticks and leaves. Some things were inevitable when sleeping in the woods.

It was dark except for the glow of his digivice, which was beeping incessantly. Taichi looked over Sora's shoulder at Mimi, but she seemed still asleep. For that matter, so did Agumon. "Okay, I'm gonna talk to him outside," he said, standing up. (Though their shelter didn't quite qualify as "inside.")

He didn't bother with his socks, stepping right into his shoes and tramping towards the remains of their fire pit. "Koushirou?" He squatted down with his digivice held close to his ear.

"Taichi-san?"

"Hey, it's me. Everything cool?"

"Yes. It's 'cool.' Were you sleeping?"

"Yeah, but no biggie."

"Oh, is it nighttime?"

"Huh, your fancy computer can't tell time?"

Koushirou gave an indignant huff. "First of all, time is a construct. Second, yes it can tell time, but given that the environment here never changes, it's hard for me to keep track."

Taichi frowned. "What d'you mean, the environment never changes?" He picked up a stick, scratching circles in the ashes.

"I mean it's just a never-ending white void."

"Oh, that's what things looked like when I came here the first time. But now we're in some sort of jungle."

"Kabuterimon told me the true digital world is full of trees and plants and even oceans, but I haven't seen any of it yet." Koushirou sounded a bit forlorn, Taichi thought.

"Catch up with us quick. Then you'll see lots. More than you want."

"Will do." He paused. "Well, I guess I should let you go back to sleep. I'm kind of tired too, even if it doesn't feel like night."

"Wait a minute." Taichi's stick hovered in the air. "You still haven't told me the reason you called."

"Huh? O-Oh, I... there was no reason. I just hadn't heard from you in a while so I thought I'd check in."

"Hmm." A grin tugged at his mouth. "Were you bored? Lonely?"

"N-No! A-Anyway, I've got Kabuterimon with me."

"H'llo," boomed a strange voice, which Taichi assumed must belong to Koushirou's partner.

"Hi, Kabu... terimon." Taichi's tongue tripped over the unfamiliar name. "Hey, could you tell Koushirou to take a nap? Even if there aren't any stars where you guys are, human beings still need sleep."

"Taichi-san! I don't need mothering! Wait, you can see stars where you are?"

"Yeah, I told you, it's night and we're in a jungle or something."

"Wow! Do you see any constellations you recognize?"

"Uh..." Although knowing he wouldn't be able to tell one star from another even in his home world, Taichi still craned his neck back to gaze at the stars above. "Not really?"

"Interesting... It sounds as though the digital plane where you are is a facsimile of our world, so I wonder if the stars themselves look the same. That would be singularly impressive, given that the stars are always moving. I wonder which hemisphere they replicate."

"Dunno. Get your butt over here and see for yourself."

"That's the plan," Kabuterimon chuckled. "Koushirou can sleep on my back and leave the flying to me."

Taichi started to agree, but yawned at that exact moment.

"Okay, I get the hint." Koushirou sounded amused. In his mind's eye, Taichi could see the shy smile unfurling on his face. "Talk to you later, Taichi-san."

"Yeah, see you."

He stuffed his digivice back in his pocket and headed back to the shelter, stifling another yawn. He almost tripped over Sora, who was sitting up, arms wrapped around her knees.

"You didn't have to wait up for me," he said as he flopped down on the leaf bed, which was not half as comfortable as Mimi made it sound. Probably needed more fronds.

Sora gave a subdued shake of her head. "What did Koushirou-kun say?" she asked.

He shrugged. "Nothing much. Just wanted to talk, I think."

"Oh." He thought she looked a bit relieved. He couldn't blame her, a call from Koushirou most often meant another update on the increasingly volatile situation back home.

Sora pulled her knees in closer. "Hey Taichi... sorry if I sounded annoyed earlier."

"Huh?" He picked a few twigs out of her hair. "When?"

"When we were deciding if we should stop for the night or not. I just -"

"You were annoyed?" His fingers rubbed together, snapping the twigs into tiny pieces and leaving them in the dirt.

"No, well - not at you, I mean, the situation. But - I thought you might think that I meant you."

"... Huh?"

She gave a soft laugh. Her lip popped out from her teeth, and he hadn't noticed she'd been chewing it again. "You know what, never mind."

"Never mind what?"

"Go to sleep, Taichi." She turned away from him, and that meant she was done talking. He understood body language.

He rolled his eyes though, shifting so that he could tuck Agumon back under his chin. Sora might be basically his best friend, but she was still a girl. Girls were so weird.

He really was tired though, and drifted off without giving it too much more thought.

- o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o - o -

So that’s how the first night went down! Now you know. I’m sure you were wondering. At least my muse is appeased, if nothing else.

[yourdeepestfathoms]

Beside The Dying Fire (part twelve)

[DnD AU with the tour!verse]

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11

I’m on the bus with no WiFi, so I’ll add a read more and put the links in when I get home

Word count: 2317

——————————

“You WHAT?!”

Isabella winced at Catalina’s shrill tone, ruffling her feathers in agitation. Today, she was dressed in a long, flowing copper dress with onyxes embedded into the fabric around the train and bust. Ruby rings clicked against the arms of her throne as she tapped her fingers in annoyance.

“Child, please,” The queen said, rubbing her temples. “Lower your voice. You are being terribly noisy and it’s starting to give me a headache.”

“You work for HENRY?!” Catalina yelped loudly, ignoring her mother’s words. “Wh-why?!”

“Support, of course.” Isabella answered as if that should have been obvious to her daughter. “And power. And treasure.” She examined her shiny rings with a crooked smile. “The deal was that if we let Henry fight and take shelter on our land, he would pay us handsomely. And pay he did.”

Ferdinand grinned toothily at her side, running his fingers over the golden chains hanging around his neck.

“When did this happen?” Catalina asked.

Isabella narrowed her eyes. “Why does it matter to you? You ran away. This is hardly your home anymore after you left us.”

Catalina winced, but Katherine could see phoenix gold feathers bristling out of the back of her tunic.

“Regardless of if it’s my home or not, I will not let it fall beneath Henry.” Catalina said. “You can’t keep this deal up. Henry is awful. His soldiers tortured Ilam, who you GAVE TO THEM! They ripped his wings out!”

“That was his own fault,” Isabella said breezily. “He shouldn’t have been getting involved in the troops anyway.”

“He’s one of our PEOPLE! YOUR people! You’re his queen and you--”

“Hush up!” Isabella roared. “I will not allow you to speak to me this way any longer!”

“I think what Catalina is just trying to say is,” Katherine said, stepping in calmly, “that Henry shouldn’t be trusted and she’s worried over the safety of you and the other people here.”

“Shut your mouth, Dagger-Head.” Isabella snapped. “Stay out of this.”

At her side, Catalina’s expression contorted with pure rage, fury flashing in her eyes. Feathers bristled up further as she yelled, “You will NOT speak to my sister that way!”

There was a beat of silence as everyone stared: the guards, looking from between the princess to the queen in bewilderment; Ferdinand, blinking; Katherine, pleasantly surprised at being called Catalina’s sister; Catalina, seething; Isabella, glaring.

And then, Isabella snorted.

“Your sister?” The queen snorted again. “Don’t you want to know where your REAL sister is?”

Catalina went silent.

A minute later, Katherine and Catalina were being led down a side hallway by Isabella. They were taken into a room built around an oasis pool, which seemed to be steaming with warm water. Bristling aloe vera plants were bunched in the spaces between white-clothed beds, and sandstone shelves were neatly packed full of vials and plants with healing remedies. Two Aasimar nurses were inside, one with dark skin and one with greenish-grey skin. There was only one patient in the bed, a small Aasimar with faintly tangerine tanned skin and wings the color of goldfish scales.

“Izzy!!”

Catalina raced across the space, startling one nurse into nearly toppling into the pool. She dropped to her knees and clasped one of her unconscious little sister’s hands in both of hers.

Katherine walked over, and realized just how young Izzy really was. She was only slightly older than Joan, maybe sixteen or barely seventeen. Her face was youthful and round, with sprinkles of dark freckles all over her nose and cheeks. Bandages were bright white against her orangey skin, wrapped tightly around her chest, left leg, and right wing. A fresh scratch was across her throat, but didn’t look deep enough to do any real damage.

“The other side did this to your precious little sister,” Isabella said, looming over the bed. There wasn’t an ounce of concern in her eyes when she looked down at her youngest child. “And it was Henry’s troops that brought her back here instead of leaving her out in the sun to die. They definitely sound very cruel.”

“When did this happen?” Catalina asked softly, squeezing Izzy’s hand.

“A week ago,” Isabella answered. “I’m disappointed to find that she has yet to get up. I didn’t realize there was so much weakness in my bloodline. Though, I shouldn’t be surprised.” She touched the medallions around her neck and chuckled lowly.

Catalina growled softly, gritting her teeth in a flash of rage. Katherine knelt beside her and set a hand on her back for support.

“Has she woken up at all?” Katherine asked the nurses.

“She has,” The dark-skinned one said. “But she’s still very weak.”

“She may have to relearn how to fly,” Said the other. “The gash across it was bad. But it’s healing well.”

Katherine heard Catalina take several deep breaths to try and calm herself and she rubbed her back. “She’s going to be okay, Lina,” She whispered to her friend. “She’ll be alright.”

Isabella scoffed lightly, and Katherine glared at her fiercely. Isabella quirked an eyebrow at her.

“Do you have something to say, elf?” The queen said. “Let’s hear it.”

“When did Izzy start fighting in the war?” Catalina asked, stopping Katherine from snapping at her mother. “She isn’t a fighter.”

“Clearly,” Isabella said. “She joined a year ago. I’m quite surprised she even lasted this long.”

Catalina looked absolutely devastated. She ran her thumbs over Izzy’s knuckles, whispering things to her in a Celestial language that Katherine couldn’t understand.

“Don’t you see, child?” Isabella said. “Henry’s forces are good. He is treating us very well. And it was the other side of the war that hurt poor little Isabella II. They sure do sound like saints.”

Catalina shook her head. “I’ve seen what Henry can do. He kills people. Innocent people. He can’t be trusted, Mother.”

Isabella stared down at Catalina. “Hm.” She said, and then took out her hidden curved knife and began slicing through the bending membrane of Izzy’s right wing.

“NO!!” Catalina shrieked, throwing herself at her mother. At the same moment, Izzy jerked awake and began screaming in pain. “Don’t hurt her!!”

But it was too late. A long, jagged gash had been cut from the base of the wing, across the patagium, and all the way to the wrist, severing muscles and tendons in the process. Dark red blood rapidly began engulfing goldfish orange feathers until it looked like Izzy had actually been born with one orange wing and one red wing. After a moment of spasming in pure agony, Izzy went limp on the bed and Catalina lunged back to her, shaking her frantically.

“Izzy?! Izzy!!” The princess cried. Her little sister’s blood dripped down onto her trousers, staining them in dark, grueling patches.

“I’m not sure why you’re panicking so much,” Isabella said calmly. She wiped her knife clean on a bloodless area of Izzy’s bedsheets. “We aren’t losing anything. The stronghold you and your little leaf-licking, oozebait companion destroyed was going to be delivering medical supplies that would help her. Not anymore, though. Might as well put her out of her misery.”

Catalina shook her head furiously. She looked at Katherine, tears brimming brightly in her eyes, and begged, “Help her. Please, help her.”

Katherine nodded and quickly got to work, joined by the other two nurses. Isabella rolled her eyes and walked out like nothing had happened.

Katherine and the green-skinned nurse began applying heated towels to the wound on Izzy’s wing, pressing down when the blood kept bubbling out. The dark-skinned nursed prepared aloe vera and gauze to wrap the cut with. In the middle of the procedure, Izzy stirred and her dark amber eyes cracked open.

“Wha…?” She slurred.

“Izzy,” Catalina perked up at her side. She cupped her little sister’s cheek to make her look at her. “It’s okay. You’re going to be okay.”

“L-Lina…?” Izzy’s cloudy eyes widened. “You’re…you’re back! You’re home!”

Catalina smiled shakily. “Yeah, I’m home. I’m here.”

“I missed you,” Izzy whispered hoarsely, leaning her head into Catalina’s palm. “I missed you so much…”

Catalina sniffled, fighting tears. “I missed you, too, sweetheart. I heard you’re fighting now. I’m so proud of you! That takes so much strength.”

Izzy beamed at that, despite the pain she had to have been in. “R-really? I was scared, but…I’m glad you think I’m strong.” She then winced, letting out a soft whine. “L-Lina? M-my wing hurts. R-really bad.”

“Shh, shh,” Catalina caressed Izzy’s cheek. “I know, honey, I know. But the nurses and my friend are gonna take good care of you. You’ll feel better in no time.” Trying to distract her little sister, she took one of her hands and pressed it against her belly. “Guess what? You’re going to be an auntie soon!”

Izzy’s eyes lit up as she looked at the baby bump. “Woah! Really?”

“Really,” Catalina smiled. “You’re gonna be the best auntie ever, right?”

“Right!” Izzy grinned weakly. “I’m gonna-- I’m gonna…” Her head lolled to the side and Catalina went ridge, the color draining from her face.

“I-Izzy? Izzy?!”

Katherine darted to Catalina’s side and wrapped an arm around her shoulders to ground her in her panic. “Hey, hey, it’s alright. She’s just unconscious. She’s still here.”

Catalina took several shaky breaths, teetering on the edges of full blown hysteria. “W-will she be okay?”

“We’ll do everything we can, princess,” The green-skinned nurse said.

And they did. They really did. But the tendons and muscles in Izzy’s wing had been badly damaged. The nurses began to worry that she would never fly again.

“She’ll live,” The dark-skinned nurse said in a hushed whisper, glancing at Izzy in her bed. Her wing was wrapped up thoroughly, with stitches lying beneath the thick bandages. Catalina was no longer in the room, she had rushed out in tears a long time ago to be alone, but they all still spoke quietly to avoid waking the patient up. “But her wing… I’m worried it won’t be functional, even after it heals.”

Katherine frowned. “I see…” She said. “I’m going to go see Catalina. Thank you for your help.”

The nurses dipped their heads.

Katherine spent a few minutes looking for Catalina, but couldn’t find her anywhere. And then a pair of guards whistled to her and nodded towards a staircase that led up to a balcony. When Katherine walked up, she found an area that she could use to climb onto the roof of the palace, so she did.

There, sitting near the edge with her knees pulled close to her chest, was Catalina, her wings open and out.

Her wings were absolutely magnificent. They were the color of phoenix feathers, and the sunset beaming down on them seemed to set the plumage ablaze with glistening fire-like light. Deep golden yellow bled down into candlelight and dusky orange and turned to gradients of ruby red with veins of copper-gold streaking through them.

Katherine had never seen them out before.

Katherine sat down next to Catalina, and felt the soft feathers brush against her arm.

“Is she okay?” Catalina whispered.

“Yes, she is.” Katherine told her. “She’ll be fine. She’ll recover, she just--” She faltered, but had to break the news: “She may not fly again.”

Catalina sobbed softly. “Maybe I should rip my own wings off, then.”

“No.” Katherine said instantly. “Do not do that. Absolutely not.”

“Why not?” Catalina looked at her, and her dark eyes held so much grief. “It’s what I deserve. I couldn’t protect her, even when the danger was right there in front of me. I couldn’t stop Mother fast enough.” She tentatively touched her stomach, then ripped her hand away, like she thought she may hurt the baby inside of her. She sobbed. “Kat, if I can’t even protect my sister, how could I possibly protect my own child?”

“Hey, hey, shh,” Katherine murmured, wiping Catalina’s tears away with her thumbs. “It’s not your fault, Lina.”

“It is!” Catalina cried, fresh tears exploding from her eyes. “It is, Kat! I can’t protect ANYONE!” She buried her face in her hands and shook her head miserably. “Do you know what Mother did after Maria died?” She peeked out and looked at Kat, despair written all over her expression. “She put her head on the Bull statue’s horn as a symbol for what happened when she was challenged. As a sign of her dominance. And she left it there until it turned into a skull. Izzy and I had to watch our big sister’s decapitated fucking head rot out in the sun for weeks, getting her eyes pecked out and eaten by birds and her skin decaying right in front of us every day. We couldn’t even bury her with her head! Mother restricted us from taking it for the burial even though we BEGGED and PLEADED!” Her voice cracked and broke from her outburst and she sobbed. “And I couldn’t do anything about it. But now, with Izzy, I could have saved her from Mother and I DIDN’T!”

“Oh, Lina,” Katherine murmured, realizing how scarred her dear friend was. “Oh, honey… Come here. Come here.”

Catalina collapsed into Katherine’s arms, sobbing. Katherine held her protectively against her chest, rubbing up and down her back. She could feel Catalina’s wings twitch around her, soft and warm to the touch.

“It’s not your fault, Lina, it isn’t.” Katherine said. “You stayed with Izzy, didn’t you? You were there with her when she woke up. Did you see how happy she was to see you?”

Catalina sniffled against her collarbone, whimpering.

“You’re a wonderful sister, honey.” Katherine went on. “And you’re going to be an amazing mother. I know you are.”

Catalina said something watery in response.

“Shh, shh,” Katherine soothed. “It’s okay. Go ahead and cry. I’ll be right here until you’re ready to talk. I’ll always be here.”

[peaches-of-1]

Yoongi- Flower Shop!AU

Male!Reader x Florist!Yoongi

Yoongi had worked so hard to finally set up his shop with his best friend in the world, Namjoon. It was opening week, and they were both so nervous. They’d offer bouquets for weddings and other events. So much money had gone into this. So many loans and help from other friends and family that they really needed to succeed, or they’d be in deep debt.

The store would be called [Once and Floral/Take it or Leave it/What in Carnation] as a pun, because that way it’d catch on faster. Yoongi’s hands were covered in dirt as the two men set up some hanging plants and a curious kitten watched them from the sidewalk.

“Namjoon, be careful on the ladder. I don’t want anything or anyone to get broken beyond repair before we even open our doors.”

“I’ll be fine. You worry too much.”

“With good reason.” Yoongi shot back with a smile.

The younger of the two got onto the ladder and his hyung handed him a potted succelent to hang up. When it was secure, they moved onto the next one. The cat came inside to watch and jumped onto stool.

Before they knew it, opening day arrived and it wasn’t too busy. It was spring, so they’d be getting business soon, right? They were nervous that no one would come in other than their friends and family who would be there just to support them. He sort of wondered where that kitten was who had been there nearly every day.

“You lookin for the cat too?” Namjoon asked.

“Yeah. I was gonna give it some cat nip. I don’t see it, though.”

Then the door opened and he walked in with the kitten. Yoongi couldn’t believe how handsome the man was. He lit up the room and made Yoongi feel like it was just the two of them in that room when the guy approached him with the kitten in hand.

“So, you own his shop?”

Yoongi wanted to say he was right, but the words wouldn’t come out. He just stared at the attractive face before him.

Namjoon answered, “Yes. We both own it. Welcome! What’s your name?”

“My name is (Y/n). It’s nice to meet you.”

“Is this little fella yours?”

“Yeah, she’s been running away for the past week. This time I followed her to figure out where she’s been going to. Her name is Yoonji, and she’s a fickle little thing.”

They smiled and Yoongi laughed and reached out for the kitten, “So, you’re not a stray after all, huh Yoongi. We also have similar names. Ah, I’ve got a gift for you if your dad will allow it.”

Yoongi met (Y/N)’s eyes and looked back at the kitten, “It’s cat nip. You were just so fun to have around, I wanted to give you a gift.”

Making his voice higher, the handsome stranger replied as Yoongi, “I don’t care what papa says, so can I have some. Please???”

They laughed and Yoongi went to get it from the back room. It was freshly grown and put into a small pouch. He took this time to make it a bit prettier than he was originally intending to do. This man was so good looking, his cat deserved something nice too. Yoongi caught his breath.

Why was he so cute? It amazed him how smitten he was all of a sudden, especially with all the friends he had small crushes on. Out of the blue, they no longer seemed to matter. He really wanted to impress (Y/N).

Once Yoongi got back to him, Yoonji’s ears went up and she started to purr and reach out for the pouch. Namjoon gone off to help some potential customers. The first 100 would get a free pack of vegetable seeds and a special pot with the business’s logo on it. She rubbed her cheek against the gift.

“I think she likes it.” (Y/N) smiled.

“You gonna stick around? I can show you around the store and tell me if there’s anything you like.”

(Y/N) liked that idea and was shown around by the man he just met. Yoongi payed closed attention to what he seemed to like while the kitten purred away in his arms. He told the story of how they got started, trying to do a sales pitch but also the cutie seemed like he was really interested in what he was saying.

The bell went off. They had gotten their first sale! A dozen roses for a girl dressed in a dark and flowing outfit. She smiled when all attention was put on her and everyone cheered. They got  a free vase along with their purchase since they were the first along with the pot and seeds.

The owners got a picture with the gothic girl as well for memory’s sake. Yoongi then returned with to the man.

“So, you live nearby?”

“Yeah, yes.” The guy said. “We’re a few blocks away, but we don’t come this way very often.”

Yoongi nodded, “Cuz the shops are mostly on the other side.”

He agreed, “Exactly, but I think we’ll be coming here more often. Won’t we, Yoonji?”

She was still purring away but gave a small mew at her name. (Y/N) decided to get an aloe vera plant as well as some colorful Bromeliads to go inside his apartment. As a salesman, Yoongi persuaded the cute man to also get some orchids.

“I’ll get them wrapped, too. Something simple.”

“Absolutely.” Yoongi grinned and moved over to the counter, wrapping the purple beauties in gray paper and tying it closed with a pinkish bow.

As the man watched the skillful work, Yoongi noticed the contrast of their hands. The florist was pale compared to him.

“You’re really good with your hands.” He said in awe.

“Thanks.” Yoongi blushed. “You said you lived nearby?”

 He lived on the fourth floor, so it was a beautiful view of nightlife. Yoongi joked that he might come visit as they moved towards the cash register to get the flowers paid for with the pot and seeds.

“That’d be fun. I’ll have to ask my boyfriend first.”

The playful smile left Yoongi’s face, “B-boyfriend you say?”

“Yep. Been dating four months now? I’ll probably get flowers for our 6th month anniversary here when that happens.”

Yoongi felt kind of sad, but it was just a crush anyways, “Oh, well. Congrats ahead of time. Thanks for stopping by, (Y/N). See you around, Yoonji.”

He opened the door for the man who had his arms full and waved goodbye to them. His face fell into a pouty relaxed state. Well that was a train wreck, he thought to himself and went back inside to help others. Then it was closing time. The two men went their seperate ways to get some rest for tomorrow.

Yoongi yawned as he was the first one at the store. Yoonji was waiting at the door, and the two greeted each other. She came by every day. Sometimes she brought a friend or two. Children came to the store more to greet her and pet her. Sometimes (Y/N) would show up and check in, buying flowers or planting tools he needed. He’d talk about his boyfriend too.

It would be their six month anniversary, and (Y/N) wanted Yoongi to be the one to make a love bouquet for them. Their was one on their menu, but he didn’t want that for his darling.

“It has to be unique. Special, like my love him. Reds and pinks, maybe whites. He likes blue, so maybe some of that?”

Yoongi gave a smile even though seeing him all the time and hearing about his heart belonging to someone else hurt a bunch. It brought pain into his heart, but as long as he could see him it’d be ok. Right?

That’s what he thought as Yoonji hopped up on one of the tables and rested in the sunlight while he made his love’s bouquet. Red carnations, a few pink peonies, blue orchids around the edges, with oxeye daisies sprinkled throughout. Everything he thought about (Y/N), and he’d be giving it to someone else.

The young man sighed, taking his gloves off and putting the arrangement on the shelf. He sent the official text saying that it was ready. Yoongi went over to his kitty counterpart and rubbed her fur, letting her climb up into his lap as he sat in a lower chair behind the counter. The “In Bloom” sign still burning bright to signify that they were open.

Namjoon was sick today, so it was just Yoongi and Yoonji and the sun and a million plants.

“You’re lucky, you know that?” He said to her. “Not only do you get to do whatever you want whenever you want like sleep or go for a walk, but you also live with (Y/N). I’d do anything to be able to be held by him like you constantly are.”

Yoonji purred.

He kept talking, “I really like him, you know? I have a huge crush on him, but he’s got a boyfriend. It’s crazy, right? Still. I’d like to at least be his friends if we aren’t able to date one another. Any excuse to be near him. That’s why you’re so lucky. You know what he likes and dislikes better than anyone. I’d love to be (Y/N)’s kitten.”

“Would you really?”

The voice made Yoongi jump and the kitten jumped to the counter and into her owner’s arms to purr against him. A fierce blush started to paint itself across the florist’s cheeks.

He wasn’t sure what to say, “I...I didn’t hear you come in.” He couldn’t meet the handsome customer’s face as so many thoughts of fear and embarrassment ran though his mind.

“Bell’s broken.” (Y/N) sniffled.

Yoongi looked up to see his eyes swollen and more red than usual even with his allergies to some of the exotic plants the store provided.

“Are you--?”

“We broke up.” He admitted. “I got your text and we started arguing. He said I spent too much time here instead of with him. I’d told him about you and he said that it was beacause...because I had a crush on you.”

The florist’s fragile heart grasped onto this seed of hope, “And?”

He bit his lip, “I said he was wrong...”

Yoongi looked down, of course.

“But I’m not sure if he was.” He paced a bit. “I came down here even though I could’ve just texted you back and said to cancel the order. Instead I really just wanted to see you.”

Alarm bells of confusion went off in Yoongi’s head as he went to the other side of the counter, “I think you should go. Try to fix things with your boyfriend. I’m not gonna be your rebound, so I think it’d just be better if you just left.”

“Do you really feel that way, kitten?”

The blush got brighter, “D-don’t call me that.” he pouted.

“And why not? You seemed to like it.”

He did, “I just don’t think this is right. I’m not just gonna date you because you broke up with your boyfriend on your 6th month anniversary and you’re looking for someone to replace him.”

(Y/N) replied, “Then don’t.” and approached Yoongi. “I’ll wait a while to see if this feeling stays, but I’ve been coming over almost every day for you. Yoonji could’ve run away anywhere but chose here. She chose you, and she hissed at him all the time. She’s smarter than me.”

“So?”

“So, I wanted to be with you the moment I saw you, Yoongi. I will be serious about our relationship. You’re not a rebound or anything like that.” He looked around the shop and handed Yoongi a red tulip.

Yoongi’s face almost matched it, “You paid attention.” He said, biting his lip.

He would blabber on and on about the meanings of flowers when they were together, just chatting. (Y/N) seemed interested enough, and it was something that Yoongi loved. Red tulips were for “undying love”

“This is how I feel about you now. I’ll buy a flower everyday to show you how serious I am. If it ever changes, we can stop whatever it is that happens from this moment on.”

(Y/N) decided to head out with his kitty Yoonji in his arms. Yoongi looked down at the tulip and told him to wait. Going to a bucket of carnations, he picked out a white one and gave it to the man. Devotion. The man smiled at the paler and shorter florist.

It had been nearly two months now, and red tulips flooded Yoongi’s apartment so much so that (Y/N) would just point to the flower that expressed his feelings for that day.

“I get it, darling. Ok, I believe it. You love me. I’m not a rebound or anything like that. That being said, will you go on a date with me?”

[andhumanslovedstories]

the national pastime (exorcist fic, 2k)

Somewhere in the Meyer household, Marcus found a baseball hat, shabby and grey as a rag, and he fiddled with it while Jenny and Kent pleaded with him stay with them just a little longer. Forward, backward, taking it off to scratch his head before he tugged it back on to shade his face. The Kansas sun had been brutal on him these last weeks. Samantha Meyer had been stronger in the sunlight, more herself in the fields her family had farmed for generations, and so Marcus and Tomas had exorcised her in the uninterrupted daylight of the plains. Marcus had sweated his sunscreen off when he remembered to put it on, and he never bothered to reapply it. Tomas did that for him, dragging him away from the writhing demon to force water down his throat, lotion on his skin. At night when they stopped, if they stopped, Tomas watched Marcus come back wincing to himself, to his fever-hot skin. He never noticed it during the exorcism. Pain was something that happened when the exorcism stopped.

The exorcism was over. Samantha Meyer dozed on her porch, the one her grandfather had built for her grandmother as an apology for the abuse. Her favorite part of her family home was the one a hateful man made to convince his favorite victim to stay. Now it was a place that sheltered her as she recovered from the evil done to her body, as she watched her gleeful children play. Kent and Jenny grabbed at Marcus’ hands and dragged him out with them. From the porch, all Tomas could make out was their laughter.

Marcus looked back over his shoulder at Tomas and gave him a rueful shrug. Even this far away, Tomas could see how pink Marcus’ ears were. The parts of him that weren’t burned were freckled, and the skin between the freckles was just as pale as if it had never seen any sun at all. Tomas marveled at that at night, when he forced Marcus down to rub aloe into the angriest burns.

“I’d appreciate your staying,” Samantha said drowsily beside him. Tomas had not realized she’d awoken. She smiled at him, the circles under her eyes as dark as the Kansas night when the fields and dirt roads went black and the rare houses formed their own lonely islands of light. “I can’t look after them by myself just yet.”

“We really should keep moving,” Tomas said, but it came out more a question than a statement. A shriek cut through the moment, Tomas and Samantha both snapping their heads to look, but it was reflex only. There was no terror in Kent and Jenny as they yelled and hollered, running around Marcus with the overwhelming energy of young children on a mission. “He’s never heard of baseball!” Jenny shouted at her mom. “Never ever!”

Marcus, his face half-shadowed by the brim of his baseball hat, grinned. “I know about baseball, it’s the one with the tackling and the goalposts.”

This comment was met with louder shouts, louder groans, only to be outdone when Kent sprinted over with a baseball bat nearly as tall as he was, which Marcus gripped at the bottom. “Ah, like cricket,” he said, and Jenny and Kent literally fell over onto the ground, evidently overcome at the ignorance of adults with funny accents.

“You see?” Samantha said quietly to Tomas, as Jenny and Kent leapt back to their feet, words overflowing them like prayer, like tongues as they mimed and jumped and preached the good news of baseball to the amicable heathen. “You think I could handle them in my condition?”

“I think,” Tomas said, “you have not changed your opinion of us sleeping in the truck.”

Samantha settled back in her chair. “I know a little more about damnation these days, Padre. And I’ll be goddamned if I see you boys rush off to sleep in the wilderness and fight the devil without your rest.”

“Tomas! Tomas!” Jenny and Kent cried, their feet pounding up the porch. They nearly tackled him, their hands grasping at his hands, at his legs. “We gotta teach him, we gotta, come on. Mom, he doesn’t know what baseball is, Mom, he says he’s never ever heard of it.”

“Unacceptable,” Samantha said, smiling as demons never could. She raised her eyebrows at Tomas. “You better help teach him. But you might take off the all blacks first.”

By the time Tomas had changed, quick as he could which wasn’t nearly quick enough for Kent pounding on the bathroom door, into borrowed shorts and an old tee, Jenny and Marcus have already set up the field. “This is home base,” Jenny said, pointing at the Frisbee by her feet. “And that’s first base, and that’s second base, and that’s third base, and that’s the pitcher’s mound, and you’ve got to run around all of them except to the pitcher’s mound, you don’t go there, and then you come back home and if no one tags you out, then that’s a run but if you do get tagged or someone catches your ball before it hits the ground or the base gets tagged if you’re not running for home, then you’re out, and when your side gets three outs, then it’s the other side’s turn to hit, and then you do that nine times until someone wins.”

“Very clear,” said Marcus. He was down to his undershirt, which already looked damp from sweat, and he rested the bat across his shoulders and hung his wrists over the bat. He was a long man. Tomas noticed that now and then. Long and lean, nearly as gangly as the children gabbing at him. He fidgeted the same as them as well, a sort of wild energy. The sort that made you run at the horizon with no concern for how you’d get home when you were done.

Tomas wondered if this was how Marcus had been when the church bought him, or the boys home took him, or his father beat him.

Marcus caught his gaze and winked at him.

Tomas stepped close and said in a low voice so that the children, who couldn’t care less as they argued teams, wouldn’t hear, “I never thought you were so hopelessly ignorant.”

“Wait till I tell them we don’t have TV in England.”

Tomas laughed and Marcus smiled bright as an island of light.

Jenny decided that since she was older, she should be responsible for Marcus, so they were a team, and Kent got Tomas, who assured the little man that he had, of course, heard of baseball, had even played it before. “Yeah?” Marcus said at that, and Tomas thought about what they would say this evening, how Tomas would tell Marcus about the summers with his father who had loved baseball more than anything, who had dreamed of pitching in the Majors and when that had failed, had dreamed that his son would. Tomas might even mention his father’s disappointment that his son had loved football instead, a disappointment he poorly swallowed, and which made Tomas madder and madder on their increasingly infrequent phone calls, when Tomas would tell his father about his last game and his father would say nothing. It was the most enduring lesson his father taught him: that sometimes you keep secret parts of your life from the people who love you. You spare yourself the insult of tepid disappointment.

Tomas did not, as a rule, like to speak harshly of his parents to Marcus. It felt spoiled. It felt petty. Complaining to a man with no legs of a sore ankle. Tomas watched Jenny at home plate teach Marcus how to swing the bat, and wondered for the first time what other disservices Tomas had done to Marcus’ character without thinking.

He put on the glove that Kent had given him. It was older than the children, no question, maybe older than Samantha. Old as Marcus’ baseball hat, which had once been the color of blue corn. Tomas had had a glove like this, broken in until it was soft as butter and pliable as a second skin. His hand was already starting to sweat. Kent planted himself between the flower pot of first base and the left boot of second base, and assigned Tomas to stand ready by the right boot of third. Jenny was on Marcus’ team but she was also the best pitcher, Kent explained, so she’d pitch for everyone except when she was at bat, and then Kent would pitch for her, unless Tomas was good at pitching. Was Tomas good at pitching? Tomas answered honestly. He was very good at pitching.

“Then you do it,” Jenny said, taking him instantly at his word, as she had taken Marcus at his. There was no lying in baseball. She threw him the ball. He caught it. Marcus waited at home, holding the bat right side up and just how Jenny had painstakingly taught him. A breeze came rustling through, and for a moment, everyone sighed at the pleasure of it. Thank you, God, Tomas prayed, the simplest and truest prayer he’d offered all these weeks.

Tomas tossed the ball up, caught it and Marcus’ eye. Marcus smirked and raised the bat. He didn’t look like a man who’d never played before. Throw the ball, his body challenged. I’ll hit it.

Tomas threw the ball. Marcus hit it, with a crack like thunder, and Tomas squinted after it, as it soared over his head and disappeared into the gleam of the sun. The children screamed, Jenny shouting, “Go, go, go!” as the ball came back into sight. Tomas took off running the same time Marcus did. The ball was coming down, it was close, close, Tomas stuck out his glove as behind him Jenny and Kent, his team loyalties forgotten, whooped and told Marcus faster, faster, faster.

Tomas closed his glove and the ball bounced off as behind him the children and even Samantha cheered as Marcus rounded home. When Tomas turned around, Marcus had two children hanging off of him, two children overcome with ecstasy. One week prior, they had helped hold their mother down while she screamed they were mistakes, the worst mistakes she’d ever made, and she should have drowned them in the bath. That’s not her, Marcus had said, and when they asked how he knew that, he told them about his father, his mother, about how cruelty was something that built up over time, about how it took just as long to build up properly as love. Demons make the beautiful ugly without warning. Humans betray you so slowly you’re surprised you’re surprised.

He picked up the baseball, dusted it off on his shorts automatically, a muscle memory he hadn’t remembered he had. When Tomas came back to the pitcher’s mound—another Frisbee Jenny had so carefully placed—Marcus grinned at him. “I thought you said you were good at this,” Marcus said.

“Beginner’s luck,” Tomas replied. He gestured at himself. “I would have thought you knew all about that, working with me.”

Marcus passed off the bat to Jenny, and called to Tomas, “No such thing. If you’re good, you’re good.”

Tomas must have smiled at that too long, too quietly, because Jenny shouted, “Throw it, Tommy,” but as he’d never heard the nickname before, with the accent up still up front, an American nickname of a Mexican name, and just for that small unthinking courtesy that he had never thought to expect from the flat vowels of this flat land where the horizon stretched uninterrupted in all directions and the sun painted Marcus Keane pink, Tomas almost felt bad as he struck her out.

[themadlostgirl]

Not Dead Yet (Part 47)

*Early update! Also a bit of a lengthy one. Either way I like it!*

Pairing: Reader x Peter Pan

Warnings: language

“How did you not notice the poison ivy everywhere?” Ben looked over Isaac and I with our rashes. I had only meant to take a quick nap and ended up falling asleep under Peter’s Thinking Tree next to Isaac. Being as dark as it was I didn’t notice the patch of poison ivy and while Isaac seemed to be in the majority of it and I had rolled into some of it.

“I’m sorry my night vision wasn’t working at the time.” I grabbed the aloe from him and started to rub the plant’s soothing gel on my itchy arms.

“Serves you right.” Verne grumbled. He and his friends had finally been allowed down from their perch.

“Do you really want to make me mad again, Verne?” I smirked at the way he curled his toes back, “That’s what I thought.”

“You could at least give Paul his tongue back.”

“He can have it back if he finds it.” I shrugged and whistled down for Candace. She landed on my shoulder looking older than usual. She’s probably nearing the end of her cycle and would burst into flames soon. Probably not best to have her around camp when that happens unless I want the camp burnt down again.

I walked her to the beach and made a little divet in the sand for her to nestle in while I waited for her to combust. I rubbed at my arms trying to drum up some heat. Why was it so cold this morning? The sea was clouded with fog and I could just barely make out the silhouette of the Jolly Roger on the horizon. Was Peter away from the island? I can’t think of why he would be upset unless he ran into Tigerlily or something like that.

“Peter,” I called but he didn’t show up, “Curiouser and curiouser.” He always shows up when I call. Maybe he is away from the island. But it’s far earlier than he would normally leave and if he left the island last night he would have been back that same night. What reason could he have for being gone all night? The only time he was ever gone so long without telling me was when he...went for a visit.

I shook the thought from my head. He hasn’t done that since we started our own arrangement. He’s told me time and again that he doesn’t want to sleep with others because he has me. Then again I did tell him I wanted things to be toned down. Not just the frequency of which we had sex but our familiarity around each other in general. What if he took that farther than I meant? What if he was back on other girls? What if he never actually stopped? Peter leaves the island a lot and he’s a good enough liar that sometimes not even I can see through his illusions.

“No. That’s stupid.” I muttered to myself, “He wouldn’t lie to me. He knows the repercussions to not being honest with me. We trust each other. I am his confidant and his friend as well as his lover I should not be so worried about this.”

Candace hopped out of her sand nest and came to rest on my lap. I ran a soft hand down her back. “I’m just being paranoid. Aren’t I, Candace? Just because Peter’s away from the island doesn’t mean he’s off sleeping with other girls. What should I care if he is anyway? This is just an arrangement between friends. Purely physical…”

My mind flashed back to the other night when I willingly fell asleep in Peter’s tent wrapped in his arms. A warmth started to blossom in my chest...then my legs and into my hands--oh shit! I quickly scrambled off the ground knocking Candace off my lap as she erupted into a column of flames. My lap and part of my chest was singed a bit but it was my hands that had gotten the majority of the damage. “Just perfect,” I looked back to see Candace poke her naked head out of the smoking pile of ash, “I hope you’re happy. Look how blistered my hands are.” I scooped her up and placed her inside of my coat.

I got back to camp and smeared some more aloe across my hands. Seeing as how my hands hurt too much to hold anything I had to abstain from training and instead took a walk along the beach. This has just been the most inconvenient day ever. I think I’m just going to wrap my hands up and go back to bed for the day.

I settled back down in my tent ready to just sleep the rest of the day through but I was not going to get that luxury because the moment I laid down all the boys came back making a ruckus. “Come on. Why is nothing going my way today?”

I sat back and glared at the boys as they ran around playing and eating. That’s it, I’m going back to the Thinking Tree and hiding out in the cavern for the rest of the day. At least there it’ll be quiet and boy free and birds won’t explode while I’m holding them. I dragged myself back to where the Thinking Tree was and jumped down the hole that led to the underground cavern.

Strange enough when I landed at the bottom of the cavern it was not dark like it usually was but it was filled with light. Sitting at the table was Peter hunched over a stack of parchment. He glanced over at me mildly surprised. “Wait, have you been here this whole time?”

“Hello to you too.” he set his pencil down and turned toward me fully, “What are you doing down here?”

“Trying to find some peace and quiet. I’ve been having a bit of an off day.” I held up my bandaged hands. “Why are you down here?”

“Same as you, peace and quiet.” I sat down next to him and he started to untie the bandages from my hands. “What happened here?”

“Candace.” I muttered as he started to heal the blisters, “She started to combust when I was holding her.”

He moved his hands up to erase the poison ivy rash from my arms. “There. If you still want to stay then go ahead and rest, I won’t bother you.” he turned back to his parchment.

“Oh why thank you,” I rolled my eyes and scooted closer to see what he was doing, “I see you’re putting that pencil box I gave you to good use.”

All around him were sketches of various things. I picked up one that was a rather splendid likeness to Candace herself. “Have you been down here all day just drawing?”

“It helps keep me calm.” he muttered as he took the paper back.

“Keep calm? Why, may I ask, are we not so calm this foggy day?” I asked.

“Weren’t you looking for a place to rest in silence?” he snapped and I backed off.

“Excuse me,” I huffed and flung myself back on the bed, “I was just asking a question. What’s going on? You’ve always been able to talk to me before.”

“Not now, Y/N.” he grumbled back.

“Fine...can I ask you one more thing though? Just one.”

He let out a sigh and turned back towards me waiting for my question with an impatient glare, “If you’ve been down here all day, why didn’t you come when I called for you?”

“Contrary to popular belief I am not at your constant beck and call, Y/N.”

“I never said you were but…”

But you usually always are.

“Were you gonna finish that thought?” he quirked an eyebrow up at me.

“Nevermind.” I tossed one of the animal pelt blankets over my head. I was able to breathe out a small breath of relief. He’s just been down here all day and not off running around other realms with pretty face princess and midnight maidens. Not that I should care anyway that is! “UGH!”

“The hell--” Peter flung the blanket off me, “Did you just have a mental break?”

“Possibly.” I drew my legs closer to me, “I don’t know what’s up with me lately. I brought Tigerlily here hoping I could have a female companion that could make dealing with all you boys easier and she’s somehow done the exact opposite.”

“Told you, fairies are terrible.” he sat down next to me, “Can I ask what she’s done now that’s put you in such a disgruntled state?”

“Things. Stupid things. Mainly pertaining to you and I. I don’t know how but because of it I’ve flipped my brain and I can’t go back to thinking the way I used to. It’s like there’s a happy ending right in front of me but I can’t get to it because I need to keep making tangents that I actually don’t want to make but I feel like I need to because I’m too scared to get to the happy ending!”

“Tangents like Isaac?”

“What?” I looked over at him but he wasn’t meeting my gaze. “What does Isaac have to do with this?”

“You tell me.” he flung a piece of paper at me.

I unfolded it and read over the note. “But this is the note Isaac left for me in my tent to meet him at your Thinking Tree. Why do you have it?”

“No. You left this note for me in my tent last night after I returned from trying to find the Truest Believer.”

“I never left you a note.” we inspected the parchment in a new light. It was the exact same handwriting from my note from Isaac. Why would he send both of us the exact same note though? He made it clear he only wanted to speak to me last night.

“This new Lost Boy seems to be up to some mischief.” Peter stood off the bed and extended a hand to me, “Little brat wanted me to see you two.”

“Why? It’s not like anything happened. We talked and we fell asleep.” the information was starting to add up, “And when we woke up we were in a patch of poison ivy. Mainly he was.”

I stared Peter down. Was this him being territorial? He couldn’t seriously have believed I’d have interest in a pale Lost Boy like Isaac. I had made it fairly obvious who my type was. It’s not like I haven’t been familiar with the others either. I go skinny dipping with the boys all the time. Devin actively peeped on me my first day in Neverland so it’s not like I’m not used to having no privacy or even any personal space. Why had my falling asleep next to Isaac piss him off so bad that he had to conjure up a rash inducing plant around us?

“Glare all you want but I do not have to explain myself to you. We need to go find this kid and find out what his problem is.” he hauled me off the bed. I made a mental note to bring this whole jealousy/territorial idiocy up after we dealt with this Isaac situation. In a gust of wind we were gone from the cavern.

~~~

Run and hide!

“Holy--” Isaac was thrown back at the sudden shouting in his head. “What is--”

“Geez, Isaac, what’s your problem?” the others looked down at him.

“Nothing. I just--”

Stop your babbling! Find a bean and run! You need to get as much space between you and others as fast as you can if you want to live.

“Why?” he whispered quietly, “What’s happening?”

Go before you incompetence gets you killed! I’ll buy you some time.

“But--”

“Where’s Isaac?” Pan’s voiced boomed from the center of camp.

“Ooh, looks like someone’s in trouble.” the other boys grinned at him like he was about to be devoured and they couldn’t wait to see the carnage.

“I gotta go.” Isaac took off running into the jungle. Where had he seen the bean grove before?

~~~

“I said, where is Isaac?” Peter demanded. He had felt the Lost Boy’s presence here a moment before. Where had he gone?

“He took off.” One of the others stated, “Shall we go hunting?”

“I believe we shall.” Peter could do with hunting down a scared pup in over his head.

“Peter,” Y/N tugged on his arm, “Something’s wrong.”

“What do you--Y/N?” the gem of her necklace turned as black as onyx. The black of her pupils expanded until her entire eye was clouded with black. She went rigid before collapsing completely. “Y/N!”

Devin caught her before she hit the ground. Her eyes never closed or even blinked. “Dammit,” Peter tried to tear the necklace from her throat but it held sure.

“That’s not gonna work,” a voice that wasn’t Y/N’s echoed from her mouth, “Your Lost Girl is currently unavailable.”

“Who the hell are you and what are you doing possessing my Lost Girl?” Peter had to remember this was still Y/N’s body and not to choke her.

“I’m not surprised you don’t recognize my voice. The last time you heard it you were nothing but a babe.” She peeled herself off the ground and started pacing around the boys. There was power in each step. Whoever was using Y/N’s body was far more confident than she should be considering she was intruding in Peter’s Lost Girl.

“Who are you and what are you doing in my Lost Girl?”

“This was the only way I could think to talk to you without appearing myself. Besides, I have a feeling you’ll be much more cooperative if I was in this form given what I can make her do.” Peter eyed the dagger strapped to Y/N’s hip.

“Fine. You have my attention. Care to introduce yourself?”

“My name is Fiona, or as I’m better known, the Black Fairy.” she smiled, “And I’m your mother, Peter.”

Not a sound came from the entirety of the camp. This black-eyed demon that had taken over Y/N’s body stood sure and straight never once blinking as her words resonated within Peter. His mother? That was impossible. His mother had been a mortal. A horrible mortal that had tried to kill him because she thought he was a changeling.

“Shocked? I would be surprised if you weren’t. After all these years you probably haven’t thought about your real family. Then again you didn’t know about me so I cannot blame you.”

“You are not my mother.” Peter’s words dripped with malice, “I have no mother. The woman that bore me died many years ago.”

“Ah yes, the mortal woman…” the Black Fairy/Y/N grimaced, “She was supposed to raise you in my stead but that didn’t quite work out as I had hoped.”

“Even if you are my real mother, which I don’t care if you are, why are you here? What business do you have with me?”

“What do you think, dearie?” she stretched out a hand as if to touch his face but Peter hit it away. She frowned as if his rejection was the most hurtful thing he had ever done, “You are my son. I’ve come to bring you home with me.”

“And leave Neverland? There is no amount of magic or gold you could offer that would get me to leave here and be your son.”

“Is that so? Not even if I were to tell you I could remove your curse?” this made Peter freeze and she smirked. “Oh yes, I know about your little predicament.”

“You speak of things you have no knowledge about.”

“Maybe not I, but this Y/N girl does. She knows a lot about you.” she smirked, “I’ve been able to go through her mind, see her memories, even the ones she’s forgotten. She knows you very well and you care for her an awful lot. Good thing she didn’t listen to Tigerlily when she mentioned the necklace. I was almost worried but of course you pulled through for me.”

“The magic I sensed…”

“Mine. But you took it as yours because it was so familiar. Is that enough proof that you are my son.”

Peter couldn’t believe what he was hearing. For years he’s been trying to forget the torment he went through when he was just a newborn. Forget the woman that he thought birthed him and move on with his life. Now this fairy had taken control of his Lost Girl and was telling him that she was in fact his actual mother. More than that she was telling him she suddenly wanted him? Why now? She could have collected him anytime but she chose now.

“If I am your son then why do you want me now? You gave me up years ago, what use do I have to you now? It’s not exactly like I’m clamoring for a parent.” Peter sneered.

“It’s not the use I have for you but the use you could have for me. I can lift your curse. Together we can accomplish anything. Rule the realms with ease. You need never have a worry again if you come with me. Doesn’t that sound wonderful?”

“You cannot lift my curse and even if you could I already have a cure. Everything I need and could ever want is right here. Now how about you shove off before you make me do something you’ll regret.”

“I don’t think you are understanding what I am offering you. You can join me and I will lift your curse and we can rule all the realms together or you can remain cursed on this spit of jungle hoping for a remedy I know you do not have yet and may die before ever achieving. Which honestly sounds better?”

“Neverland. Always.”

“Fine. I was hoping it wouldn’t have to come to this.” she snapped her fingers and the necklace started to shrink growing tighter around Y/N’s throat yet the voice came out clear. “Come with me or the girl dies.”

Peter watched as the necklace grew smaller and smaller. He had to make a decision. “Go ahead.” he put on his most convincing smirk, “Offing just one of my recruits isn’t going to make me change my mind.”

“Is that so? And here I thought you may have actually cared for her given all the lengths you’ve gone to for her before.” she chuckled, “I can see it all. The kind words, the drastic measures to keep her safe, the intimate dances, and such pretty drawings.”

Peter’s blood was boiling but he kept it bottled down. If he played his cards right he could get the both of them out of this sadistic confrontation. “Sentimentality is not an attribute of mine. You are only seeing the honeyed words for a stubborn common whore.”

“Well then,” she stuck out her lip in a pout, “If she truly is worth nothing to you than there is no point in me prolonging this.” The necklace cinched tight like a noose as it started to cut into her neck. A thin line of red blossoming across her throat.

“No!” Devin shouted,”Leave her alone!” he tried in vain to pull the necklace free. Devin looked back at Peter pleading. “Damn it you coward! Save her!”

“Stop.” Peter pushed Devin away and approached Y/N’s possessed body. “I’ll go with you. Just leave Y/N out of this.”

She smiled cruelly as the necklace loosened. Peter immediately pressed a hand to the cut stopping the bleeding and healing her throat until there wasn’t a mark left. “Good choice. And to ensure that you don’t try anything, this necklace will not fall until you leave.”

Peter withdrew a bean from the pouch at his side and handed the pouch off to Felix. “You’re in charge till I get back. Don’t let these idiots destroy the place.”

“How will you get back?” Felix asked worry evident in his voice.

“I’m not sure. I’ll think of something. In the meantime find that rat Isaac. I want to have his head on a stake when I get back.” he turned back to Y/N, “I want to speak to her.”

“Of course. But don’t forget, I’ll still be watching.” She closed her eyes and when they opened they were clear once more. Y/N fell forward into him and gazed around.

“What happened?” she asked groggily, “I felt like I wasn’t anywhere. Peter, what’s wrong?”

“Are you alright?” he asked and she nodded. “I have to go do something. I’ll be back though. I don’t know when but I will.”

“What do you mean? Where are you going? What’s going on?”

“I can’t explain right now. Just stay here and don’t do anything stupid.”

“Wait you can’t just leave so abruptly like this--” he cut her off with a deep kiss not caring who was watching. There was so much he wanted to tell her but this was not the time for it.

Reluctantly he pulled back and pressed his forehead against her’s, “I’ll return to you and explain everything,” he whispered, “I promise.”

She studied him for a moment before giving his lips another peck, “You had better.”

“I will. My word is my bond.” He gave her one final look before dropping the bean on the ground and stepping through the portal. The sight of the necklace falling from around her neck being the last thing he saw before being sucked through the violent torrent into the unknown.

(First) (Previous) (Next)

[adapted-batteries]

I Want to do Dirty Things with You

Fandom: The Librarians

Rating: General/sfw

Ship: Castrella

Word Count: 1623

A mysterious letter arrives at the Annex for Cassandra with an...interesting message inside. 

This is my first shipathon fic, and the first time I’ve written Castrella. Hope you guys enjoy!

Also posted to my Ao3.

---

“Oh, Cassandra, a letter arrived today. It’s addressed to you,” Jenkins said as she walked into the Annex for the day. He held the envelope out to her casually while he read a book on the table.

“From who?” she asked, accepting it from him and looking it over. There were no addresses or anything identifying its sender; only Cassandra’s name in pretty black calligraphy on the front.

“Not sure. Someone must have dropped it off in person,” Jenkins replied, not particularly intrigued.

“Ookay then. I wonder what it says,” Cassandra said, opening the fancy wax seal. Inside was a piece of paper, either handmade or specially bought hemp paper, containing the same calligraphy as the envelope. There wasn’t much script, but what was there made Cassandra’s jaw drop and cheeks flush pink.

I want to do dirty things with you, Cassandra.

-Estrella

P.S. Bring a change of clothes, or an overnight bag.

“Did it say who sent it?” Jenkins asked, suddenly quite interested in the letter.

“Oh, uh, it was from Estrella,”  she answered. “Do you mind if I have a personal day?”

Jenkins smiled knowingly, pulling out a drawstring bag that Cassandra kept in the Library if she stayed overnight or needed a quick change of clothes. “Go on and have fun. Tell her I said hello,” he said as he handed her the bag.

Cassandra looked at him, confused as she took it from him. “Why did you have my bag?”

“Estrella may or may not have called the Library to set up the backdoor so she could deliver her letter,” Jenkins answered.

“Did you read the letter?!” she asked, eyes wide in a mix of concern and embarrassment.

“No, no, she actually didn’t tell me anything besides to deliver the letter and have the backdoor ready for you,” Jenkins clarified, raising his hands in surrender as he walked to the backdoor. “I just had a hunch. Go relax, you deserve a break.” He opened the door for her, revealing the glowing blue magic portal.

“Thanks, Jenkins,” she said, smiling. He smiled back, and with no hesitation Cassandra hopped into her favorite place in South Carolina.

Even before she got her bearings after magically teleporting, Cassandra could tell it was a gorgeous day. Birds chirped, the sun shined bright but not overbearingly hot, various flowers and soil scented the air, propelled by a gentle breeze. Once her eyes adjusted to the sunlight, she could see people doing a variety of tasks and activities around the grounds, though she searched for one in particular.

A smile appeared on Cassandra’s face when she spotted Estrella walking towards her. “I was waiting for you in the house, but as always your backdoor moved away, to the greenhouse this time,” Estrella said.

“It does that sometimes, we make do,” Cassandra replied casually, trying not to seem too eager to kiss her girlfriend.

Estrella eyed the bag hanging off Cassandra’s shoulder. “I see you got my message,” she said, stepping close enough to Cassandra to intertwine their hands.

“Yup. What kind of...things...did you have in mind?” Cassandra asked, blushing.

Estrella leaned in and kissed her, light and sweet, before answering. “Let me show you.” She tugged lightly at Cassandra’s hand to get her to walk.

Cassandra assumed Estrella would lead her to the house, but instead they went towards the vegetable gardens. “I’m getting the impression that ‘dirty things’ involves actual dirt,” Cassandra said as they walked past a group of people doing yoga on one of the open spaces.

“You would be correct, for the day anyway,” Estrella teased. “Unless that is you would like to do some night gardening. The moon reflecting off the lake is a spectacular sight.”

“Oh, no, I’m totally fine with not gardening at night,” Cassandra replied quickly, earning a chuckle from Estrella.

“Good.” Estrella let go of Cassandra’s hand as they neared the shed that contained all the tools and such for the gardens. “We get to take care of the cucumber and zucchini today, weeding and checking for pesky beetles,” she said as she stepped in the shed.

“That doesn't sound too hard,” Cassandra said, looking around as she stood outside.

Estrella reappeared at the door, rainbow polka-dot gloves in hand for Cassandra. “You do remember how many plants we had last time, right? They've almost doubled in size.”

“Oh,” Cassandra said, putting on the gloves with reluctance as Estrella disappeared back into the shed for tools.

“It won't be too bad. And afterwards we can visit the spa,” Estrella consoled, this time with garden trowels for both of them and shears in her tan-gloved hands.

“I think that is fair payment for toiling in the sun,” Cassandra said as she took one of the trowels. “Though if I get sunburnt, you have to smother me in aloe gel.”

Estrella closed the door of the shed and started walking towards the rows of large leaved zucchini plants. “If the mineralized water protects me from the sun, I wonder if it would prevent sunburns too.”

Cassandra dawned her thinking face. “In theory, it should, actually,” she determined. “The crystals absorb the sunlight before it can reach your cells. As long as it behaves the same way in...normal people, then it would not only prevent irritation of the tissues but also prevent the formation of thymidine dimers in the DNA, which would make it an effective preventative for skin cancer too.”

“Now that I think about it, I don’t recall seeing anyone red that wasn’t from physical exertion, though I’m not the one to ask. I’m sure the spa would have more knowledge about the state of our guests’ skin,” Estrella said, stopping at the top of one of the rows, smiling fondly at Cassandra.

“What?” Cassandra asked when Estrella made no move to start tending to the garden.

“This was supposed to be a break in your crazy life as a Librarian,” Estrella started, kneeling down next to a plant. Cassandra followed suit.

“So I can’t do science while I’m here? What’s the point of having a soil and plant scientist girlfriend?” Cassandra quipped, nudging Estrella with her elbow.

Estrella laughed in defeat. “Who am I to deny you that.”

---

“How do you manage to look so good?” Cassandra whined, wiping at her forehead with the back of her glove to keep the sweat from dripping in her eyes.

Estrella looked up at her, an eyebrow raised. “What ever do you mean, dear?”

“I’m pretty sure my face must be the color of those tomatoes over there, and I can feel the hair sticking to the back of my neck. Do you not sweat?”

“I can, but it has to be much warmer than it is now, and you would definitely know when I started sweating,” Estrella explained.

It took a second before Cassandra got it. “Oh, well that’s not fun.”

“It is quite unpleasant, and a lot more dehydrating than regular human sweating.” Estrella stood up, slipping her gloves off her hands. “Speaking of dehydrating, why don’t I get you something to drink. I’d rather not have you passing out from heat exhaustion.”

“I prefer not passing out too,” Cassandra agreed. She thought about going with her, but she also wondered if Estrella was going to refresh herself as well, and didn’t really want to see that, so she smiled up at her before looking back down to the dirt to pull out a weed.

A few minutes later Cassandra heard footsteps in the dirt. “Oh good, you’re back. I was getting pretty thirs-” Cassandra cut off, sucking in a breath as somewhat cool water poured on top of her head and back for a few seconds. Eyes wide, she glanced up at her attacker to find Estrella with a watering can in one hand and a thermos in the other. “When you said ‘a drink,’ I assumed you meant for a person, not a plant.”

“The beautiful flowers need a lot of water, right?” Estrella joked, sitting down the watering can. “I did bring you some lemonade though, they just made it.”

“Ooh, ok you’re forgiven for watering me,” Cassandra said, pulling off her own gloves to wipe at the water droplets on her skin.

“I was in trouble?”

“For like, I dunno, five seconds maybe. I can’t stay mad at you,” Cassandra said, taking a sip of the lemonade. “This is so good. I need to come more often.”

“Just for the lemonade?” Estrella asked, looking over at Cassandra with a smirk.

“Ok, maybe for more than just the lemonade…” Cassandra conceded.

Within five minutes Estrella got a taste of her own medicine as Cassandra emptied the rest of the watering can on her.

---

Cassandra found out just how intense gardening could be. Though they only spent a couple hours pulling out stray weeds, occasionally picking off beetles that didn’t smell that great when squashed, a variety of parts of Cassandra’s body were voicing their complaints. Estrella didn’t seem all that pained, though she had been doing this for years, Cassandra remembered.

Thankfully Cassandra stayed sunburn free, perhaps due to the “shower” (she may or may not have rubbed the water into any exposed skin for good measure). The spa was a well deserved treat to her weary muscles.

“I feel like spaghetti...lavender-scented spaghetti,” Cassandra said as they left the spa, her arm entwined Estrella’s. Before she could say anymore, a yawn escaped her lips.

“I don’t normally retire this early, but perhaps I can make an exception,” Estrella suggested.

Cassandra nodded. “Naps, naps are good.”

Estrella couldn’t help but smile at her. “You are adorable.”

“I know,” Cassandra confirmed, smiling at her sleepily.

Estrella couldn’t help but kiss her.

---

Post Notes: Castrella is great guys. Honestly I really want Estrella to be more involved in plot because that retreat is amazing and makes my inner botanist go nuts, plus Estrella is great and makes Cassandra happy so winning all around.

The sunscreen-like property was a random thought in my head, but it makes sense, provided that mineral binds to normal cells, since the cells of the vampires are apparently different. Honestly I’d love to just have mineral water to protect me instead of thick sunblock...summer is a season of suffering for my poor skin, but I still don’t stay inside as I’ve got gardens to tend to.

[amaranthinecanicular]

The garden grows.

[continue under the read more or on ao3]

“Mineguchi?”

Reigen chews the words around a mouthful of takoyaki.

“Who’s that now? I don’t know him.”

“Minegishi,” Mob corrects. He explains that Reigen did meet him, briefly, during the battle against Suzuki-san’s father. He had psychic mastery over plants.

“Nope, not ringing any bells.” Reigen pops another takoyaki ball into his mouth and promptly coughs it back out with a puff of steam. Mob catches it without much thought.

It’s a slow day at Spirits and Such. Slow evening, more like, with the spring dusk spilling in gold and lazy through the window. Serizawa is at school. Dimple is wandering. Mob is gazing at the takoyaki ball as it orbits his finger slowly, though he doesn’t really seem to see it.

“I saw him today,” Mob says. “He works at the flowershop downtown.”

“Oh yeah?” Reigen says back–tries to say, around the glass of water he’s chugging to cool his burned tongue. He gurgles out a chuckle. “Mob, Mob, Mob. How predictable today’s youth is. For Tsubomi-chan?”

“Um, er, no, not for Tsubomi-chan.”

Reigen rubs his chin, smearing some crumbs in the process. “Hm… Aha! For that Hanazawa kid?”

“Wh-what?” Mob tries to suppress the flush as it climbs his neck. He fails. “No, why would I, for Hanazawa-kun, I, that is, we–”

Reigen barks a laugh and dismisses the question with a few decisive flicks of his wrist. He plucks the takoyaki ball from the air and leans back in his chair. “Alright, alright. I’ll bite. Why’d you go to the flowershop, then?”

Mob clears his throat and avoids eye contact. When he tries to will away his blush a second time, it works.

“Do you remember the spirit that was haunting the garden? Out in the country?”

“Haunting the…?” This time Reigen’s expression resolves from thoughtful into triumphant. “Oh yeah, the plant monster! That client paid us in produce. And then you grew some tomatoes with your powers and they were…”

A beat.

“…Edible,” he finishes.

Mob nods. “I’ve taken care of that tomato plant,” he says, “I’ve tried to, I mean. With my powers, when it wilts I make it better. But…”

He hesitates. Reigen takes notice, and he shifts forward, just slightly. The chair squeaks with the redistribution of weight. Concern knits into Reigen’s brow, into his woven knuckles on the desk.

“What happened, Mob?”

Mob tells him.

The plant felt wrong, he says. Like it was sick, no matter how healthy he made it. So he took it to the flower shop, and Minegishi was there, and he checked it out and in a neutral voice told Mob that it was his fault. That plants have a will just like people do, an aura, and they don’t like that will to be violated and warped by the use of psychic powers. But it’s hard to see all that if you don’t know what to look for, so Mob didn’t look because he didn’t know until he did, and then he really looked and he–

Mob stops. He worries at the sleeve of his school uniform, tugs gently at the buttons. The passive planes of his face are cast in shadow. He looks very small.

“I was hurting it, Shishou. All that time.”

Reigen considers this. He hums, a low, thoughtful sound, and then he sighs, rubs a hand across his mouth. The boat of takoyaki is forgotten. For a moment he is just a normal man, working through a normal problem.

“Well,” starts the normal man, “it’s not like you broke the rule. Technically it wasn’t a person, right? So-”

“That’s not the point, Shishou.”

“Yeah, yeah. I know.”

Another sigh, heavier than the first. His shoulders are rolled forward and his brow is creased. He drums his fingers on the desk, just like any normal, troubled man. Then the moment passes and he is Reigen Arataka, twenty first century’s greatest psychic, and he is holding up one finger and looking Mob dead in the eye.

“Okay, then. Here’s the point. Yes, you hurt it. You didn’t know you were doing it and it sucks that you did, but you can’t change that now. Wallowing in guilt instead of doing something about it is selfish. You can still be a good person even though you make mistakes–that’s all it was, a mistake–because being a good person means taking responsibility for those mistakes. Learn from this and go forward with your new knowledge. Use it to keep from hurting anything else. Understand?”

“Yes, Shishou,” Mob says, and when Reigen grins and claps a hand to his shoulder he could swear that he is ten again.

“Good. Now get back to your desk, break’s over, we’ve got a client in ten.”

The first one isn’t a tomato plant, though perhaps it ought to be. Maybe the fact that it isn’t is what fools Mob into thinking Reigen’s sudden interest in office horticulture could have to do with anything else but him.

A week or so after that conversation, when the office is quiet and Serizawa is once again at school, Reigen tells Mob to water the plant.

Mob looks up from his homework. “Shishou?” he says, wondering if he misheard. There are two big plants in opposite corners of the office, but Mob has never seen anyone interact with them. He half-assumed they were plastic.

Shishou is tapping lazily at his keyboard, chin in one hand, eyes glazed by the electric glow of the screen. His voice is distracted.

“The aloe,” he says, and waves one hand in vague half circles behind him. “Water it, will you?”

Mob almost asks what he’s talking about, but then he sees it: a third plant, small and green and sitting in a pot that sits in a dish that sits on the windowsill. There’s a little watering can set beside it. He puts aside his homework and approaches: the watering can is green, plastic, and shaped like an elephant, with a spout made to look like the trunk. It’s cute, Mob thinks. The aloe is also green, though smaller, and perhaps a bit greyer, with leaves that stick straight up like little fingers reaching for the ceiling. The pot is made of clay, or maybe ceramic, glazed and painted white and dotted with blue swirls.

“Ugly little thing, ain’t it?” Dimple says, hovering at Mob’s shoulder. Mob doesn’t answer. He thinks it’s also rather cute.

He waters it.

Without bothering to look, Reigen tells him to pour out the water in the dish once it’s finished draining–it’s bad for a succulent to sit in old water, he says, because it can cause rot. Mob waits patiently for the water to stop trickling through the soil before he pours it out as instructed. Once that’s done Reigen gives a distracted grunt of approval which he takes as permission to return to his desk. A client comes in not long after with complaints of spiritual insomnia and the aloe drifts to the back of Mob’s mind, until a few days later, when Reigen asks him to water it again.

This goes on for several weeks. The aloe comes from Reigen’s apartment, apparently, he’s had it for a couple years, he brought it to the office because he thought it might bring the room together and help ward off spirits. Under his rather blase tutelage Mob cares for the cactus, which appears, as far as he can tell, to stay exactly the same. Despite his seeming disinterest Reigen’s instructions are always clear and easy to follow: add balanced fertilizer to the water if Shishou hasn’t already, pour out the excess, repot it every now and then. Mob is surprised by how often he’s told to water it–there is a vague memory, from school or television or his mother or a book, that tells him these plants should be watered only once in a great while, and only very little.

He brings it up once for fear of drowning the thing: “I didn’t think it would need this much water, Shishou,” and Reigen only snorts and tells him sure, most people think that, but the twenty first century’s greatest psychic knows that while a succulent can survive without much attention, it certainly won’t thrive. Give it time, Mob, you’ll see.

He does see. Soon enough he comes into work to find Reigen and Serizawa standing at the windowsill, peering down, and his first thought is located not in his head but in his stomach, where a pit of guilt has already been cored out of him: oh no, I killed it. He worked hard, he tried to care for something without his powers, he tried to be better, and he failed. He failed. He–

“Kageyama-senpai!”

“Hm? Oh, Mob, there you are. Come on, take a look.”

Mob looks. Dimple does too, and he speaks first, because Mob is too stunned to.

“Huh. Pretty impressive, Shigeo.”

“Ah,” Mob finally says, happily surprised, “Hanako bloomed.”

The flower is unlike anything Mob had ever seen–unlike the generic five-petaled thing in his imagination, at least: stem that leads to a sunburst, dozens of orange petals that erupt in every direction from the core. The color is rich, and vibrant–it thrums with life. Mob feels a sunburst of his own warm him deep in his belly, where the guilt sat only moments ago.

“Hanako?” Reigen says, raising an eyebrow. He looks amused; Serizawa looks surprised. Mob blinks back to himself and remembers to be embarrassed.

“That’s, um. That’s what I was calling her. In my head.”

“Not very original,” Reigen snorts. Dimple agrees with a sneer.

“I like it,” Serizawa says.

“Congratulations, Shishou,” Mob says, in an attempt to divert attention from his flushing face. Reigen’s other eyebrow joins the first.

“For what? You did all the work.”

“I heard you worked very hard,” Serizawa adds. His smile is sincere, and only a touch nervous. “Well done, Kageyama-senpai.”

Reigen grins down at him, and Mob remembers what the sunburst in the cradle of his stomach is called. Oh, he thinks. This is pride.

Reigen’s attention is back on the aloe. He turns it round and round in his hand, examining the flower from all sides.

“You know,” he says, “I think it looks lonely.”

The second one is another succulent, bigger than the first, and much darker. Mob thinks it looks like a star unfolding outward, over and over and over–it’s beautiful. Reigen calls it an echeveria, and names it Kurohiko. The third one is a round little cactus–to balance out the window, Reigen says. Only the cactus reminds Mob of Ritsu, so that’s what he calls it, and Reigen ends up letting him give it to his brother as a gift. (Ritsu takes being compared to a cactus by his big brother with good grace, only wilting a little, until Mob informs him of Reigen’s googled symbolism. “Warmth, protection, and endurance,” he says, “it reminded me of you.” Ritsu stops wilting after that.) So they end up having to get another small plant to balance out the window. Serizawa names that one.

A jasmine plant next that Mob just calls Jasmine–it’s a good investment, Mob, now we won’t have to keep buying tea for clients–and then a waxflower shrub that Reigen calls Gerald. Mob doesn’t remember what his shishou’s reason for that one was, but he remembers that they bought it from Minegishi, who looked surprised to see them again, but was very polite during the transaction, if a little stiff.

Reigen teaches Mob how to care for each of them. He only thinks to ask about it all after they pick up the third potted plant from Minegishi’s flower shop, and without hesitation Reigen launches into a speech about patience and control and growth and the metaphor as it relates to Mob’s powers. That makes sense, Mob thinks to himself, and lets it go in favor of teaching Serizawa the best place for Jasmine to get her four allotted hours of direct sunlight and where to move her afterward, as Shishou taught him.

The garden grows.

Mob shouldn’t be surprised by the pot of geraniums sitting on his desk when his birthday rolls around. He gave Ritsu the cactus, after all, so the precedent was already there, not to mention the gardenias he gave to Hanazawa after his enthusiastic support of Mob’s new gardening hobby.

Dimple circles the pot of flowers and snickers, “I’m calling this one Shige, Shigeo.”

Shige is neither gardenias or a cactus. The flowers are bright, and the color familiar–the kind of neon pink he has only seen fracturing out of an esper’s aura. He never knew he thought that color was unique until he finds it blooming on his desk.

“I didn’t see you growing this,” Mob says, though he thinks he may have seen a flash of fuschia beneath Shishou’s desk a week earlier. Shishou’s grin is smug.

“Well, that’s why I’m the master and you’re the student,” he says with a flourish of his hand.

Mob sniffs at one blossom and sneezes out pollen; Reigen’s smile loses a hint of its smugness. Becomes something genuine.

“Happy birthday, Mob,” he says, and tousles Mob’s hair. His thumbs are stained with soil; there must be dirt in Mob’s hair from Shishou’s ruffling hand.

He doesn’t really mind.

Between work and school and the exponential growth of potted greenery all over the office, Mob doesn’t even remember when Reigen brings in the tomato plant. It might have been after Jun, the blue star juniper; it might have been before the snapdragon Ryuichi. He doesn’t know, and in the end, he doesn’t think it matters. 

What he remembers is that they named it Tomoyo, and what he remembers is the slow and steady way it grew. A big warm pot that breathes, and a packet of seeds. Delicate vine braiding a wooden stake. Sunshine, and water. More water. Spongy soil and mulch dark beneath his fingernails, beneath Shishou’s. The shiny green bulbs that swelled into heavy fruit, still small but yellow, now, with blooming patches of orange. Mob marvels at it all. With his powers this process was skipped over, seed to fruit and green to red from one heartbeat to the next. Life on fast forward–no life at all. This is different. This is better.

Mob isn’t quite sure if Minegishi is their friend now, but he definitely stops frowning when they walk through the door. They buy their flowers and fertilizer and mulch and pots almost exclusively from him, and he is always perfectly polite. Once he maybe sort of even half smiles, in a strange way that twitches the muscles beneath the skin but doesn’t really move his lips. Shishou is doubtful, but Serizawa agrees with a smile that does curve his lips, so Mob decides, hesitantly, that maybe they are at least on their way to friends, if not there already.

“I don’t remember seeing this one around the office,” Reigen starts. He stares down at the pot between his palms like doing so will change it into something more familiar.

“You grew it on your own, Mob?”

“Yes,” Mob agrees.

“Bluebells?”

“Yes,” Mob agrees again. “Happy birthday, Shishou.”

Reigen blinks, and with it his expression ripples from raw into something unreadable. His voice is even and smooth when he lifts the pot for examination and says, “Hm, not bad, Mob.” But the bluebells, fragile little things more indigo than blue, tremble in the grip of his trembling hands. When they brush together Mob almost expects to hear chimes tinkling.

Reigen turns his back. He waves one hand over his shoulder at his student, breezy, and tucks the bluebells close to his side with the other.

“I think I can make room in my apartment. Thanks, Mob.”

This time his voice sounds just a bit hoarse. But maybe that’s Mob’s imagination.

Reigen says the plants make the office more welcoming and the clients more comfortable, and for some of them this even appears to be true. A few even get sent home with a small or not-so-small pot and careful how-to instructions. The divorced woman receives a succulent. The empty nesting couple gets an asparagus fern. The quiet old man whose wife passed recently leaves with a peace lily.

“This plant was blessed,” Reigen tells them. “It’ll keep the ghosts away”–or else it will calm them, in the case of the old man, who doesn’t want his wife’s ghost to leave so much as to let him sleep–he says, “so long as you take proper care of it.”

The clients all leave a little brighter, arms laden with some green leafy companion that Mob watched burst from its seeds. It’s a silly thought, but the leaves seem to wave goodbye.

Mob dips into a bow for the old man and his peace lily as they hobble to the door. The old man smiles and tilts his head in return.

“Have a good afternoon,” Mob says to the old man.

“Goodbye Yuri,” he says to the lily.

“Bye, Yuri,” Reigen says too. He grins at Mob once the door is closed, and ruffles his hair. Mob is still brushing loose soil from his bangs when Reigen jerks his chin to the door.

“Wanna go pick out a new peace lily?”

Neither Mob nor Reigen are as bad as Serizawa. For his birthday Reigen gives him an overflowing pot of bleeding heart flowers, and Mob teaches him how to care for them. To his credit, Serizawa only cries for ten minutes.

And then one day Mob looks around and realizes that the office has become a greenhouse, full of life and living things. A pot on every other surface, and on the floor, and even hanging from the ceiling. Green everywhere, spilling over. The air is sweet and the plants are healthy. Happy.

“See?” says Reigen. He and Mob are tending to the tomato plant. The plump little spheres are orange now, starting to flush red. It won’t be much longer until they’re ready to eat. Mob can tell already that these ones are happy, and will taste sweeter.

“Caring for something with your own hands,” Reigen continues, “and watching it grow… it’s nice, isn’t it?”

There are bags of fertilizer shoved under the desks, and sunlamps in the closet when there is not enough light to go around. The air is full of pollen; tissues and allergy medicine are tucked into the drawers. Reigen’s thumbs are constantly stained with soil.

Mob says, “Yes, Shishou.”

“I think the tomatoes are just about ripe. If they’re good then we can plant more and sell them, I bet. Hm… Okay, I’ve decided. We’ll try them after this job, how about that? Fry them up maybe. Serizawa should be out of school by then, you can invite some friends, we’ll try them together. Make a day of it. How’s that sound, Mob?”

The tomatoes are never eaten. They aren’t even picked.

“It’s okay, Ritsu, Shishou wouldn’t mind. He’d want me to do this, I think. Hm? Oh, I’m fine. Yes, I know it wasn’t my fault. I just have to go check on the plants. No one’s been at the office for a few days and Serizawa is going to the funeral, so someone needs to check on them. I’m sure Shishou would want that. Thank you for your concern but I’m alright. You can go, Suzuki is waiting for you. But you don’t have to go either, you know, if you don’t want to. I’m sure Shishou wouldn’t mind that either– really, Ritsu, I’m fine. Really. I’m just going to go check on the plants.”

Ritsu finds him after the funeral. There is soil smeared all over, on the floors and walls and ceiling, on his cheeks and hands. The ceramic pots are shattered; the plastic ones are gutted. Dimple warned him that it wasn’t pretty, when he came to him for help. He wasn’t wrong.

Glass and withered leaves crunch under Ritsu’s dress shoe, and he feels fear. It weaves into his veins and roots his feet to the floor like so many plants sheared apart under the weight of his brother’s grief. There he is, suspended above the carnage in the middle of the office–the eye of the storm, Ritsu thinks, or the epicenter of an earthquake, trapped by rings of cracked tile and shredded petals. The heart of a dead flower, maybe.

“I killed them all,” his brother sobs, eyes still white and glowing. “I didn’t mean to–what would Shishou say?”

The tomatoes have burst like blood spatter. Ritsu remembers they were beautiful.

He takes a deep breath for courage, and then picks up his foot and walks forward. One step, two, he tears the roots of fear up and out from between his toes, shakes them off with every step. Three, four.

“I killed them,” Mob says again, even as Ritsu pulls him down and into his arms. “I killed them, I killed them, I killed him–”

Ritsu holds his brother among the corpses of flowers.

Time passes. Mob drifts.

“Mob! It’s me! Where have you been? Your muscleheads are worried about you because they haven’t seen you in a while, and Onigawara won’t quit bothering us. I know you’re fine, of course, but would it kill you to show your face every once in a while? Call me back, we can go on another telepath-hunting date!”

Mob drifts.

“Hello, Kageyama-kun. It’s Hanazawa. I haven’t heard from you in some time, and you haven’t been replying to my texts. That’s fine, of course–I don’t want you to think I’m pressuring you to move faster than you’re ready. I can’t imagine what you’re going through, and I know that you’re coping as best you can. I just want you to know that I’m here, if ever you should need a friend to talk to or listen. You’re the strongest person I know, Kageyama-kun, but it’s important to remember that you don’t have to be. Please, just know that you’re not alone.”

Mob drifts.

“Hi, Kageyama-senpai. It’s me–uh, Serizawa, I mean–but you probably already knew that, um. Sorry for calling again. I just, uh. I just wanted to let you know that I’ll be… I’ll be going home for a little while. Just a little while. Until I can–until I can get my powers under better control, where I won’t be a danger to anyone. I thought things were fine, but–ahem, um, anyway, I’m telling you where I’ll be in case you ever need someone to talk to about–about–about everything, and um. Ah, I’m sorry, I’m just…

“…ha ha. I’m pathetic, aren’t I? Crying over a message. What would he say? Ha. Ahem. I just wanted you to know that I’m sorry, Kageyama-senpai, for everything, for not being strong enough and for not saving him and–and that I’m here for you, please, I-I know I don’t have the right to say so but I think Reigen would want–”

Message deleted.

Mob drifts.

Time passes, and Mob–

Is answering the door.

“Come in,” he says, and Ritsu stops knocking to poke his head around the frame.

“Hey, Nii-san. Can I come in?”

“I already said you could, Ritsu.”

He composes a mild smile to show that he’s joking, and Ritsu plays along, chuckles, enters. Dimple floats in over his shoulder. In the center of the room Ritsu stops to stare at his brother. Mob stares back.

“What’s wrong?”

“…Nothing, Nii-san. What are you doing?”

“Homework.”

“Shouldn’t you be at your club today?”

“That was in middle school, Ritsu.”

Ritsu does not mention that Gouda founded the club in high school too, and he does not mention the sheet of equations that sits blank on the floor between them. He shifts from foot to foot, hands in his pockets, looking unsure. Mob is content to wait.

Finally Dimple nudges him, and Ritsu says, all in a rush: “I have something to show you in my room. Will you come with me?”

“Of course.”

Ritsu’s room is dim, but there is enough warm evening light coming from his window to see by. Ritsu goes to the window. He looks down. Mob is reminded of someone else standing in front of a window and silhouetted by the sunshine.

“I found it when I was cleaning up the office. The pot was broken, and most of it was gone, but… this part still looked good.”

“Found what? Ritsu?”

Ritsu turns around. Holds out his hands.

“I didn’t want to show you,” he says, “until I was sure it would live.”

His thumbs are stained with soil.

“But… I think it was always going to live. You and Reigen took good care of it. I’m sorry I took so long.”

Mob takes the plant with hands that shake. The pot is different than it was, simple and unglazed and with no swirling blue designs. But the aloe within is the same. He can feel the distinct pattern of its aura taking shape. If he probes with his powers, he can map out the fragile fingers where the cutting has taken root.

“Hanako,” he says, and something inside him softens, crumbles, and falls away.

Serizawa wasn’t expecting visitors, Mob can tell, it reads in his wide eyes and his rumpled clothing and the stubble that has started to grow back in. His hair has gotten long enough to curl just slightly at the tips. There are bags beneath his eyes. He’s staring down at Mob and he’s surprised, but that’s alright because Mob is a little surprised, too, though he knows he shouldn’t be. He chose to come here, after all.

“K-Kageyama-senpai,” Serizawa stutters. “What are you doing– what is that?”

He knows what it is, he must, because the seed packet sits on top of the big brown pot in Mob’s arms and it reads TOMATOES for all to see. But Serizawa’s face has gone pale and his eyes have gone glassy, so Mob tells him anyway.

“Tomatoes,” he says. “I don’t remember telling you how to plant them at the agency, so I thought I’d show you now. If you’d like.”

“I,” says Serizawa, and he blinks rapidly.

“It takes a lot of patience,” Mob recites. “And a lot of responsibility. Controlling this will help you control your powers. Do you want to?”

Serizawa breathes in; the sound is wet and hiccupy. He takes the pot and smiles.

“I’d like that,” he says, and Mob smiles too.